


Danganronpa: White Silk

by K (Tsumugi_Shirogan)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: 4th Wall Breaking, 53, Black Comedy, Broken Dreams, Comedy, Danganronpa Inspection Committee, Dank Memes, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Funny, Gen, Great Tragedy, Humerous, Impact, Japanese, M/M, Memes, Monaca Towa - Freeform, Monoliths, Most Awful, Most Despair inducing Incident in the History of Mankind, Most Tragic Event in Human History, Multi, Nagisa Shingetsu - Freeform, Nuclear Weapons, Other, Pre-Canon, Pre-Game Akamatsu Kaede, Pre-Game Amami Rantaro, Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi, Rape, Resurrection, Steering Committee, Team Danganronpa - Freeform, The Biggest, Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Freeform, Tragedy, Visual Novel, Washing line, Zetsubou, danganronpa - Freeform, meteors, non-con, pregame, the tragedy, the worst, warriors of hope - Freeform, ニューダンガンロンパV3 みんなのコロシアイ新学期, 人類史上最大最悪の絶望的事件
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-07-24 18:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 41,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsumugi_Shirogan/pseuds/K
Summary: A full fledged Fan Fiction called “Danganronpa: White Silk” (in reference to the literal translation of Tsumugi Shirogane), discussing the pre-game events that lead up to Game 53, as well as the events post-V3, using both canonical evidence inferred or shown in game as well as my own personal interpretations and inferences (headcanon) from the game, and a little bit of extras mixed in. From the perspectives of both the Participants (predominantly Shuichi and Kaede), as well as from Team Danganronpa themselves (predominantly Junko Enoshima and Tsumugi Shirogane).





	1. Prologue, Chapter Zero (Junko Enoshima)

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FANFICTION, BASED UPON INFERENCE AND HEADCANON; IT IS NOT MEANT AS A CANONICAL WORK WITHIN THE FRANCHISE.
> 
> READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, FOR:  
> • STRONG VIOLENCE, INCLUDING RAPE AND TORTURE  
> • SEXUAL CONTENT, SOME OF WHICH IS CONSIDERED PERVERSE (But no Paedophilia, since even I have stuff I genuinely can’t write about without feeling physically ill)  
> • DRUG USAGE  
> • SELF HARM AND SUICIDE  
> ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS SET PRE-DANGANRONPA V3, AND POST DANGANRONPA 3 – BASICALLY, IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED, WATCHED OR READ THE WHOLE DARN FRANCHISE, THERE ARE PARTS OF THIS YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND.  
> THANKS, AND PLEASE ENJOY.

I despaired. I despaired within every iota of my despair-fuelled form. 

This is ridiculous. I died, right? RIIIGHHHTTTT?

This should all be over. 

So annoying!

I sighed. Well, I think I sighed? Or did I? What even is sighing, anyway? Do you sigh? Should I sigh? 

Lemme just look at my surroundings, for your pathetic sakes.

It's like, a cinema. I think. You probably watched it in the anime adaption, right? It's like one of those old cinemas you see stereotypically in those old period dramas and stuff.

Yep, this is the after life. Or, part of it. Honestly, after I got squished into paste the first time, I was so intrigued to continue watching the world filled with my beautiful, beautiful despair, I kinda just stayed in this lobby area, y'know? I watched my fellow classmates escape my prison, and join this little "Future Foundation"; I watched the world burn in anguish, and the fight to stop the flames; I watched the anticlimactic drama of my smaller proteges, and the ensuing epilogue; I observed my first attempted "rise from the dead" in the Neo-World Program (not that it would be me, y'know, since I'm me. Ever heard of Theseus' Ship?), and my second death (does that make me a messiah?); and I watched the attack on the Future Foundation HQ, the killing off of some minor bit characters, and the "happy ending", whole "driving into the sunset" (or, uhhhhh, floating I guess. What do boats do? Sail? I think? Hmph.) 

Only, for those muppets down there, it wasn't actually a happy ending. Sure, they survived, but you can survive a while from cancer- that don't make it a decent experience.

Problem is, the world continued to burn. Nothing really changed. A year or so went by, and anarchy still ruled; Future Foundation wasn't really built to be a "world government", per se, so I don't imagine they really planned it in advance. 

People got used to the despair-filled world. And you know what?

That means it isn't despair anymore! Despair is unpredictable, like a wildfire, or an atom mid-reaction. You're not supposed to, like, get used to it and accept it as the norm. Enjoy it! Do stuff with it! Try to get rid of it, and despair when you fail!

If despair is the new norm, then it isn't despair anymore. Survival of the fittest, right? Guess hope wins or whatever. But is this really even hope? It's not quite hopelessness, nor is it really hopeful. it's just...

Boredom.

What to do, eh? I mean, if I'm stuck watching this bullshit for the rest of eternity, I'll have to pluck out my own eyes. Like, come on.

Hmph. How does one change the world when it's already so... well. Y'know.

Wait... I do remember that Chisa girl saying something. Foreshadowing, or something. But... there was something about her. Like, she knew something else beside me.

...

I got it! Audience! Fourth wall! Talking and stuff! If an audience talks to the programme, that involves a certain kind of interaction. But talking to the abyss is boring... but if I could return to the abyss, the shithole world I came from that I left wallowing in my magnificence...

Tell you what. I wonder... No, not THAT. They broke it, y'know? Can't fix those pieces back together. But... what about me? Like, ME me? Is there...?

They removed that one and replaced it Star Wars-style, that one is squished, that one's -- actually, I'll leave THAT one inside her I think, ha -- but...

Ah-ha! Got it. What if I...? 

Yes.

Yeessssssssss.

OK, I'm out. Puhu... Puhuhuhu...

Oh, I'm literally out by the way. There's a door I came in, so I'm just going out it now. 

Puhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu.............


	2. Chapter 1 – Nightmares and Daydreams (Makoto Naegi)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FANFICTION, BASED UPON INFERENCE AND HEADCANON; IT IS NOT MEANT AS A CANONICAL WORK WITHIN THE FRANCHISE.
> 
> READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, FOR:  
> • STRONG VIOLENCE, INCLUDING RAPE AND TORTURE  
> • SEXUAL CONTENT, SOME OF WHICH IS CONSIDERED PERVERSE (But no Paedophilia, since even I have stuff I genuinely can’t write about without feeling physically ill)  
> • DRUG USAGE  
> • SELF HARM AND SUICIDE  
> ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS SET PRE-DANGANRONPA V3, AND POST DANGANRONPA 3 – BASICALLY, IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED, WATCHED OR READ THE WHOLE DARN FRANCHISE, THERE ARE PARTS OF THIS YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND.  
> THANKS, AND PLEASE ENJOY.

He knelt on the ground. It was transparent, almost reflective, like a blue sky yet darker. Waves of sky grew all across the ground, and when he looked upwards a sinister version of the world reflected at him.

He’d been here before, a year ago. He thought it had been a one-off thing, back then; but knowing the powerful, mind-bending works of despair, he should have realised that surviving the experience wouldn’t be a single occurrence.

Every. Single. Night.

He watched his friends die, over and over, in this hellscape, unable to do anything but scream in his head, before eventually waking up.

This time, however, was different. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The dead rose, blaming him, but their voices were quieter; their apparitions seemed almost like they weren’t putting effort in.

Then the universe flipped upside down, and he fell through the watery surface, drenched in pink and blue, drowning but breathing, falling and swimming, before being emptied out onto another reflective surface, only this time the ground was a solid sky blue, failing the reflect a sombre sunset sky.

He walked. And kept walking.

Suddenly, he was sitting down; and guess who sat opposite him?

My reflection smiled, and chuckled to herself, before doing a cheerful wave at the lost young man.

'Why was she here?'

He spoke, but no words came out. He was at a loss.

“Cat got your tongue?” She spoke cheerfully. “Can’t be bothered to speak? To listen… or even, apologise?”

He scowled, visibly annoyed.

“After all… _you killed me_.”

She cackled, and did a little jiggle in her chair, before scratching her head. “OK, seriously, I’m confused, this is your dream right? Just speak already, this is booooorrrrinnnng!” She shook her head, apparently frustrated.

 “Anyways, just wanted to check how you were doing, sitting around doing nothing with your happy-go-lucky pals. How are the gang doing, hm? Having fun without me?” She gave a little chuckle, before standing up. His eyes followed her, but he made no moves. Again, he opened his mouth, but all that came out was a quiet moan of pain.

She stood, leaning over him; she was only around fifteen centimetres taller than him, but he still felt dwarfed. She combed her fingers through his hair, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m off now. I got things to do, y’know?” She spoke, somewhat quietly. She began to walk off, before turning around to say something else.

“By the way…

 _I’m still alive_.”

Makoto Naegi woke with a startle, throwing his bed covers off in the process. He was hyperventilating, shivering in sweat. Dashing to the toilet, he very nearly threw up, but managed to calm himself.

Makoto sighed, and shook his head. He sat on the edge of his bed, and slid down until he was sitting on the floor, and leaned back, watching the ceiling of his room. He could vaguely hear someone coughing in the background; a few meteors bouncing off the atmosphere could be seen, presumably debris from old missiles and unused satellites.

What had he become? What of his hope?

His project, the “New” Hope’s Peak Academy, sitting in a field of flowers and usually bathed in a glowing sunlight, was a failure; a symbolic gesture at what should have been the end of a dark period for humanity, ushering in a new, brighter future.

These days, most of the work the Foundation got was charitable distributions, peace keeping between the various despairing factions, and the occasional rescue mission of an Ultimate alumni. It… wasn’t really the whole “saving the world” thing he’d thought it might be.

The best thing he’d managed to do was reconcile the “Remnants of Despair” – that is, his upperclassmen – with the rest of the world; or at least, the Future Foundation. Some despair zealots managed to discover Jabberwock Island, and very nearly destroyed it with a chemical weapon; they stopped it in time, but decided the location was now too well known to keep them there.

Thus, they now resided with the rest of many of the Future Foundation’s members – in the new Hope’s Peak Academy building, in all of it’s somewhat crumbling glory. It took some getting used to; there were a few assassination attempts on them, mainly from vengeful agents who had lost friends to their previous selves, and certainly some of their various attributes took some time to control – from hamsters roaming the halls, to managing to food poison almost the entire organisation except a single guy who happened to have a cold that day – but eventually they became “part of the family”, so to speak.

He stood up and took a look outside. The sky was a dark red at this time of night; although the toxic atmosphere was slowly clearing up, mainly due to some neat technological advances, it was a slow process, and the world still hadn’t gotten back to its natural condition, like it’s inhabitants. Shaking his head, he opened his bedroom door and took a step into the hall. Pacing down the stairs, he sung a little ditty to himself, thinking his nightmare over and over as to what it could mean.

Junko was dead, right? The dead can’t rise. That’s just not normal. This may be a strange world we live in, but necromancy just isn’t part of it, surely?

More importantly, how would he get rid of this damn suicide programming in his head from that bloody (no pun intended) video?

He thought to himself, thinking of happy thoughts and considering some possible solutions.

However, that changed when he heard the groan from nearby, and seeing who it was – and what was happening – pushed his thoughts at bay, for now.


	3. Chapter 2 – Pain (Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FANFICTION, BASED UPON INFERENCE AND HEADCANON; IT IS NOT MEANT AS A CANONICAL WORK WITHIN THE FRANCHISE.
> 
> READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, FOR:  
> • STRONG VIOLENCE, INCLUDING RAPE AND TORTURE  
> • SEXUAL CONTENT, SOME OF WHICH IS CONSIDERED PERVERSE (But no Paedophilia, since even I have stuff I genuinely can’t write about without feeling physically ill)  
> • DRUG USAGE  
> • SELF HARM AND SUICIDE  
> ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS SET PRE-DANGANRONPA V3, AND POST DANGANRONPA 3 – BASICALLY, IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED, WATCHED OR READ THE WHOLE DARN FRANCHISE, THERE ARE PARTS OF THIS YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND.  
> THANKS, AND PLEASE ENJOY. 
> 
> NB: Ah, I do love writer's block. Mine is actually quasi-selective is the problem - I always want to write stuff that comes to the top of my head, rather than in order, so half of this fanfiction is already done yet most of it is out of order... And you should see all the other works of fiction and non-fiction I've written which have the same problem! Argh!

What Makoto found on the floor was one of his upperclassmen, the Ultimate Yakuza – Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu. Writing in pain, groaning lowly, and blood seemingly pouring out of his head.

For Fuyuhiko, it had started with a headache. He’d woken yesterday morning with what felt like a mild headache, taken some painkillers, and spent the day as usual. Yet he returned to bed that evening with the headache remaining.

Then he woke, trying to scream and failing, letting out a macabre groan instead. He rushed to the bathroom, producing a massive amount of sickeningly brown vomit, straining his throat and colouring the vomit with blood. He reached for the cupboard with the painkillers inside, but looked into the mirror and jumped half a foot in the air, as he realised that his right eye was fully discoloured and squirming like a fetid worm gasping for air, giving him a small flashback to the bad old days.  

Feeling winded, he stumbled in the darkness, grabbing what solid nearby wall he could, and slowly crawling into the corridors, eventually passing out somewhere.

And now Makoto stood over him in abstract horror, as blood pooled around them.

Time passed; Makoto had called some doctors to see what they could do, and summoning some relevant ultimates – including Peko – to inform them of the matter. He intended to keep this under total secrecy, feeling a duty to keep the somewhat calm atmosphere.

Yet watching Fuyuhiko’s writhing body, even going into spasms and shock whilst under anaesthetic as doctors attempted to surgically remove the offending eye, he felt an unwary sense of, for want of a better word, despair.

Eventually the surgery was finished; Fuyuhiko recovered shortly afterwards, and Peko rushed to give him a somewhat unwarranted embrace. But those gathered soon noticed the grim elephant in the room, the pulsating, mouldy eye that had now been placed in a sterile container, presumably to be tested on.

Those who had gathered – Makoto, Fuyuhiko, Peko Pekoyama, Toko Fukawa, Hajime Hinata, Kyoko Kirigiri, Kyosuke Munakata, and Byakuya Togami – watched this eerie exhibition, pondering quietly what to do with this unusual situation, aside from burn the eye within every inch of it’s foul existence.

“Can I be the first to say this out loud…?” Fuyuhiko stated matter-of-factly.

“What the actual fuck.”


	4. Chapter 3 - Oderint dum metuant (Toko Fukawa and/or Genocider)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FANFICTION, BASED UPON INFERENCE AND HEADCANON; IT IS NOT MEANT AS A CANONICAL WORK WITHIN THE FRANCHISE.
> 
> READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, FOR:  
> • STRONG VIOLENCE, INCLUDING RAPE AND TORTURE  
> • SEXUAL CONTENT, SOME OF WHICH IS CONSIDERED PERVERSE (But no Paedophilia, since even I have stuff I genuinely can’t write about without feeling physically ill)  
> • DRUG USAGE  
> • SELF HARM AND SUICIDE  
> ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS SET PRE-DANGANRONPA V3, AND POST DANGANRONPA 3 – BASICALLY, IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED, WATCHED OR READ THE WHOLE DARN FRANCHISE, THERE ARE PARTS OF THIS YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND.  
> THANKS, AND PLEASE ENJOY. 
> 
> NB: Wow, totally forgot to post this/these for a while on here, huh? Too busy writing out the actual thing to be honest. Merry Xmas/holidays and whatever, by the way!.
> 
> Another note: This will be the last chapter with a disclaimer. I'll now just include a short introduction for each chapter.

The Future Foundation’s most feared and most fearsome intern had landed near the Academy only a few minutes prior. She had been accompanying her partner in crime Komaru Naegi on yet another “peacekeeping” tour of the ruins of Towa City; once a secretive bastion of (false) hope, a year or so of war had ravaged it from the inside, killing or neutralizing the entire ruling family one way or another (Monaca Towa disappearing into planetary orbit, and Haiji Towa being assassinated with a car bomb before being attached to several vans and torn to pieces by an angry mob of brainwashed children), and many of the citizens either fleeing or being brutally murdered.

The “peacekeeping” of Future Foundation was more like warmongering and controlling suitably unstable and violent areas with little to no gain nor value.

Either way, Toko was good at her job – errand running and tactical advisory – and Genocider was good at hers – slicing even the most audacious of opponents to little ribbons.

Anyhow, she had just landed after completing a recent mission; the modified VTOL tiltrotor helicopter (developed on old American designs following the failure of the helicopter evacuation of Komaru and attempted rescue of Togami in Towa City) touching down on the roof of the Academy building.

She sneezed, and Genocider appeared once again; but she was in a moderately light-hearted mood for a serial killer. Whilst the Future Foundation refused to truly trust the feared murderer for her erratic behaviour, in reality she had “calmed down”, to an extent at least.

But Komaru trusted her; she was the best of friends to both sides of the girl.

“…So I say to him, ‘If you can tell me what this is, I’ll let you live”. This guy, he says “they’re scissors, I think?”, and you know what I say? “Wrong! They are the metaphorical representation of my bloodlust!”. And then, you know what? He dies at my hand!” The older of the two girls cackled. Komaru gives a light chuckle, before noticing how quiet it is on the roof.

The blood red, ashen sky made it difficult to give a genuine estimate of the time. If she had to say, it was about 4am; they weren’t late or early. So where was her brother?

Something wasn’t right.

Wait, nope! Everything was OK. Her brother opened the door of the roof, in what sounded like a hurry. He was wearing a long trench coat that was larger than he was, and he looked out of breath and cold. Komaru ran over to give him a hug; Genocider sighed, tapping her foot impatiently whilst waiting for her friend to finish. Realising this might take a boring long while, she took out the reliable taser and shocked herself.

Toko Fukawa waited patiently for Komaru to finish. She seemed somewhat nervous about something her brother said; she shook her head, smiled sadly, and then waved goodbye and left without saying a word to Toko.

Makoto himself shook his head almost in unison with his sister. He turned to Toko, who raised an eyebrow in confusion. He nodded to himself, then shook his head; taking a walk to the edge of the roof, with his hands in the pockets of the coat, he looked up to the sky.

The reflection of a red moon lit his face up in an eerie manner.

“Nice weather today, huh?” He spoke quietly, in a calm, yet nervous manner. Toko squinted her eyes at him in a sense of frustration. “I mean, yeah; I guess?” She responded.

He shook his head again. The night seemed silent and calm.

“Something’s happened. I think you’d better come and meet with the rest of us who’ve gathered.” Makoto finally said. Toko felt like saying something, but instead took her glasses off and wiped them on her clothes a little, before nodding.

And so they descended into the bowels of the huge building in an awkward silence; the long elevator ride making it even more odd. Eventually they reached the lab where the others had gathered, the de facto leaders of the Future Foundation, gazing at this oddity seemingly swimming in a sterile jar.

The silence was broken by Fuyuhiko stating what everyone was thinking.

Munakata grunted. He’d been in a semi-hiatus from working with the reformed Future Foundation under Makoto, but upon hearing the theory that Naegi spoke of, he come over as soon as he could.

“So, you’re expecting us to genuinely believe that we SHOULDN’T destroy this eye, which is so obviously something that shouldn’t exist, yeah?” Hinata grumbled. Munakata nodded. Makoto shook his head. “I hate to say it, but there is obviously something seriously wrong with this eye – which means that it shouldn’t be destroyed simply for it’s existence. We need to understand it, dissect it… or whatever, I guess…”, he stated flatly, but even he sounded like he doubted his own words.

Makoto hadn’t explained his true theory as to what the Eye was to anyone except Kyoko (who he had married shortly after the Final Killing Game, mainly not really wanting to lose her again), Fuyuhiko (out of necessity), and briefly to Toko. Truly, the Eye terrified him – not only because of it’s dark, grim aura, but because of what omen it may hold for the future.

He stared at the Eye.

The Eye stared back.

Makoto grimaced, before calling over one of the scientists (an Ultimate Biologist, if memory serves correctly) to discuss “containment” of the Eye, whilst the others muttered to one another about the eerie situation (except Fuyuhiko, who was still staring in somewhat abstract horror at what had been his eye (sort of).

Satisfied that the Eye could be properly contained in the lab until it was decided what experiments and such could be run on it, he dismissed the others, and decided to walk with them to the Gym (which was also outfitted as a base of operations for the Future Foundation) to properly discuss the Eye.

So, the leaders of the organisation that wished to restore the old status quo of order and hope to the world sat in a tall building that seemed a bit out of place, in a field of white flowers, somewhere on Hokkaido, discussing an eyeball.

How fake. It’s all so fake, right? It’s all dumb, stupid, ridiculous. Like, before, the Future Foundation was actually kinda cool, you know? With their “suited and booted” kind of fashion, and their SUPER SERIOUS vibe of “restoring order and hope and blah-de-blah”… but now? It’s just totally dumb. They haven’t restored order, not even in the territories that they actually rule. They’re a façade, an organisation built on fake hopes and fake dreams, wishing for something that will never return, and forcing those who disagree with them to accept their fake reality. I destroyed the old world, you know?

You’d have thought that people would actually realise and adapt, like some have. But even adapting to normalcy is still totally normal, and totally boring.

Yeah, it’s boring. But don’t worry, my reader, because the story is gonna get good real soon!

You know why?

It’s Junko’s despair time, of course!


	5. Chapter 4: Resurrection (Junko Enoshima, Makoto Naegi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The leaders of the Future Foundation discuss the situation. Junko awakens, and begins to fulfil the start of her plan.

The leaders discussed the “situation” all the way through the day and all the way into the next night; some leaders came and went and returned after grabbing some breakfast, some waited for their significant other to come and see them, and some were so focused on thinking of a response that they didn’t bother with things like food, thus making some onlookers somewhat worried for their wellbeing – and this worry was increased by the fact that they still hadn’t really told anyone outside the room about the situation.

Each leader reacted differently to Makoto’s story; his premonition, his idea about the Eye, and some possible outcomes; some chuckled, some grimaced, and some simply nodded, stone-faced.

To one of the sides of the discussion table, Munakata sat with his arms crossed and his face weary. He wore a maroon but plain suit, and his trusty katana swung on his belt; he had replaced his lost eye with a black glass one, which sometimes rolled into the back of his head.

To be fair to him, he still wasn’t too keen on keeping the Future Foundation open at all. He had thought, perhaps, that following the Final Killing Game the new leader, Naegi, would have the common sense to shut down the group and simply leave the rotten world be, instead focusing on rebuilding the academy that had given them so much hope in their future. Instead, when he had returned from his first trip of hunting down members of the Remnants of Despair, he was lampooned once again into the organisation he thought he had left in ruins.

He still believed that there should be no room at all for despair in the world, and at this point the Future Foundation really wasn’t helping eliminate the deadly hold that this despair still held on the world.

And now, there was this strange situation. He still didn’t really know the full story of the Remnants of Despair, or why some of them were so obsessed with a dead girl’s corpse (which he was still confused about; didn’t the footage show Enoshima’s corpse being squished into a bloody mess?), but the very idea that this Eye may well have some kind of, for want of a better word, remnant of the girl’s being inside it seemed quite absurd to him.

He drummed his fingers on the desk, thinking of other things.

It was soon the early evening, and the meeting appeared to conclude. The members drifted out of the room one by one, until Naegi, Kyoko and Munakata were the only ones left. Naegi glanced towards the older man.

“Kyosuke, I know the whole idea of this thing seems ludicrous to you, but if this is a real thing… how would you deal with her?” Naegi queried, with Kyoko nodding to herself.

Munakata stopped drumming his fingers, and stood up; the other two did the same, and they began to walk out of the room together. “I’m pretty sure you’d have guessed my answer already, but if Enoshima did in fact come back to life (for, what, the 3rd time?), I’d ensure she’d be dead on the spot, preferably by my hand – revenge is perhaps a petty thing, but that little shit deserves it for what she did to Chisa and Juuzo”.

Kyoko shook her head in obvious disagreement. “If that situation occurred, we’d probably end up in the same mess we did around a year ago, at the old HQ. We’d almost certainly be playing into her twisted game again”. Naegi didn’t respond.

Munakata sighed again, and stopped walking. He looked out of the large pane window on his right hand side, gazing over the white field of flowers reflecting the bloody sky.

“I am a man of absolutes. I don’t like to consider the ifs and whatnots. An Eye from a crushed corpse cannot be the same girl who brought the world to it’s knees”, he stated flatly. Naegi interjected, stating “We all know that this world is so very strange at times. We can only hope that perhaps—”

“Stop. Talking. Like, whatever – I said, I’m not interested in voodoo resurrections and eyeball shit”, Munakata grumbled. Naegi flinched a little. “Why don’t we talk about something else, like the Neo World Programme or the Nishina Operation? How is all that going?”, Munakata suggested somewhat more politely – although, Naegi seemed to flinch even more.

He stuttered a little. “Well, you know… that type of thing is still a… work in progress, I guess. Some of the old devices and stuff have been recovered, but so many were—“.

He was interrupted by the sound of a blaring siren.

About an hour prior, in a subbasement around twenty floors down from Naegi’s little chat, my Eye gained what could be called a little bit of consciousness.

My consciousness.

Within twenty minutes, with the temperature, lighting, and humidity of the room that the eye’s jar had been placed in, my body had begun a quick process of minor regeneration for new flesh. My soft, light body collapsed onto the floor in a heap, feeling only a little bit of momentum and, for want of a better phrase, feeling.

I curled up on the somewhat cold floor, resting my head on the metallic operating table in the room, wrapping my wet arms around my knees. I chuckled, contemplating the strangeness of my return, and the events that had prompted such a thing.

I stood up, and walked to the door of the lab. I knocked on the glass door, and a security guard wondered carelessly in, obviously bemused by the sound and then paralysed in confusion by the mess. I came round the side of the door, quickly wrapped my hands round his throat, and proceeded to plunge my fingernails into the soft part under his Adam’s apple, tearing out much of his throat and causing a bit of mess.

I stood, naked as the day I was born (Ha!), drenched in my blood and his, and I grinned. Grabbing his assault rifle, combat knife, and a coat with an apple and keycard inside (I was in a rush, alright? Calm your tits…), I made my way down the hall, took a detour to a staircase, found a map, and waltzed up to the first sub-basement (about ten floors up, one floor under the ground floor but around eleven floors under Naegi). I proceeded into a large server room, and pulled up a laptop attached to one of the large processors. Racking my brain of the events of the last few years, I started a bit of an information gathering thing, knowing all too well that within half an hour or so, another guard would walk past his comrade’s bloody corpse, with between five and ten minutes to spare before the alarm would sound across the complex.

And so I dug my despairing grip further into the heart of the Future Foundation, pulling out every inch of detail and data I could, thinking it all through in my head and planning how I could bring about my new, and ultimate, goal.

Back to Naegi and the gang.

The siren that would cause Naegi to jump in surprise about three feet in the air was accompanied by a voice over the tannoy, as well as several screens of CCTV feed.

“Warning: This is not a drill. Subject believed to be Junko Enoshima, former Ultimate Fashionista and supposed Ultimate Despair is on Sub-Basement 1, with one casualty. Apprehend with extreme caution. Warning: This is not…”

Thousands of unsaid curses and negativity flooded the Ultimate Hope’s head; is this real? How? Why?

He didn’t have time to think; he met some of his counterparts along the way and sprinted to a lift to the floor his former classmate was on.

Pulling out a handgun, and gritting his teeth in simultaneous anger, frustration, and horror, he marched with his friends and allies into the server room, and locked eyes with me, as I sat awkwardly in a swivel chair with my front to it’s back, chomping down the apple whilst mostly naked, and having my classic Cheshire Cat grin reflecting the luminescent LED lights.


	6. Chapter 5 – Live and let the languid world die (Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko fights with the group. Naegi feels bad.

I stopped what I was doing, and took out the memory stick that was in the computer I was using, and placed it on the side, before turning to the group.

I could have sworn minutes passed, as my eyes locked with Naegi’s, whilst his motley crew stared daggers at me.

I got bored, so I spoke first.

“You’ve been looking at me a while, y’know?” I chuckled lightly. “Are you looking at my breasts? My big boobs? My honkers, badonkers, dobonhonkeros?!” I looked down. “Wait…”

I’ll be honest. I hadn’t really looked much at my body yet; my mind was two thousand miles ahead, thinking of my Plan. I hadn’t really got down to the nitty gritty of my return to the world.

The coat I had stolen from the guard’s corpse hung over emaciated shoulders; my bones stuck out, and my breasts hadn’t even begun to grow. I legs were thin, and my genitalia and buttocks far thinner than I was terribly comfortable with. My hair was short and red (my natural hair colour), barely grown, even at the rapid pace my body had regenerated, although my physical health was still quite good.

In an instinctive fit, I dropped the coat, letting my gloriously damaged body go bare to the world.

“My eyes are up here, little Macarena Maraca?” I spoke again, still kind of bored.

Naegi was visibly shaken. He trembled. There was a sigh behind him, and the group parted to reveal Toko and Munakata. It appeared that if they wanted to have something done, they would have to do it themselves.

Toko went into an offensive stance, and switched with Genocider, whilst Munakata appeared to go on the defensive for the serial killer turned intern, pulling out his katana. But Genocider stopped in her tracks.

“Huh? Huuuuh? She’s… she’s??? Yo. Enoshima? In the flesh? Kyeehahaha!” She grinned wildly, gesticulating at me. I waved back nonchalantly.

But then she stopped smiling and pulled out her scissors. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this. Maybe I’ll kill you, maybe I won’t. Huh. Oh, Moony, I’ll have this dance for myself, if you don’t mind.”

I almost missed it. Almost. She sliced the side of my cheek as she flew past me, my dodge only being a millimetre or so out of the calculation. I stepped back, stepped forward, and did a twirl, dodging each slice of her blades, in an awkward dance. I jumped onto one of the servers, which Genocider proceeded to slice, sending out a jolt of electricity.

She jumped to follow me. Moving forward, I threw a jab, but then went into an uppercut into her chest, somewhat winding her and forcing her to drop one of her scissors; I managed to grab one from her thigh strap, and took a slice of her hair before jumping back.

She screeched a bit, and I waved the chunk of pig tail braids whilst grinning. This little fight was a bit dull for my taste, but still – beggars can’t be choosers. She rushed me again, and, with my stolen blade in tow, I gave her cheek a cut in kind. And yet…

I’d misjudged my step. Shit, I’d forgotten that despite being physically strong, much of my actual body energy was still being used in it’s apparent attempt to fully regenerate lost flesh. I tumbled into the electrically humming darkness below; I think I hit my head on one of the machines, and someone shouted, before I apparently lost consciousness.

. . .

I awoke in what appeared to be a padded interrogation room. Stuck in a straightjacket. The light wasn’t on in the room, but I vaguely heard a shallow bang (possibly a door being opened); a few minutes passed, before a bright light reflected into the chamber and off the white padded walls. The wall in front of me opened to show a very serious looking table and chair (to reflect my ironic situation, perhaps), with a classic one way glass wall further back.

There, in the chair, sat a possibly unqualified leader of the Future Foundation, looking somewhat sleep deprived, with a rather thick file sitting on the desk.


	7. Chapter 6 – Hellish Reflection (Junko Enoshima vs Makoto Naegi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naegi interviews Junko. Junko sees something unexpected.

Naegi looked at me and sighed.

“You’re in no position to argue, as we’ve played this game before, but I know you’re going to anyway – so let’s agree to disagree, and interrogate you in the old manner”, he stated in a grumbled manner.

I countered immediately, choosing my words carefully: “I can come back from the dead, apparently; I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to refute you any time I want”. He flinched, but struck back: “How did you do that, exactly? Necromancy isn’t possible, even in this—”

“If necromancy, or an afterlife, or something, isn’t real, then how am I here, numbnuts?!” I chuckled. An easy win.

He went a little pale, before beginning his fight anew. “How did you, uh, ‘return’, and for what purpose?”

“Because I could, and I wanted to! I am the Ultimate Despair, you fuckin’ daft egg boy, I can do what I want! Puhuhuhuhu!” I responded quickly. But he refuted this: “If that were true, then why not return sooner? You said it yourself – you despaired at despair since you’d finished despairing even in death, or something to that effect, during your last return in the Neo World Programme. Why return now?”

This time I was the one who flinched, mainly as I didn’t really have a response, at least not without revealing the Plan. So I changed tactics.

“Y’know, isn’t it like you said? That we’ve played this game before? Danced this dance before? I don’t think we should do our usual refute upon refute; just interview me like a common criminal, rather than the overlord of despair and annihilator of the world, yeah?” I suggested in a somewhat kind tone.

He sighed. I think the effort at the old tactics had gotten to him. He was a leader now, not a common foot soldier who has to rely on arguments, refutes and evidence or fruitful discussion – he just needed to get info out of me, nothing more.

He patted the pile of information, and opened it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a file on me, but on the Remnants of Despair (that is, the organised insurrection, rather than specifically Class 77B). It appeared to show several photos, locations, dates, and other musings. Compared to my observations from that cinema, I was somewhat disappointed. Whoever their information gatherer was should be fired.

“Do you know where or who the last members of your terrorist network are, or might be?” Makoto queried. I raised an eyebrow. “And I’d know that… how exactly? I’ve been dead for over a year or so properly, y’know?” I glanced at the glass behind him. “And even if I did, I’d never tell you cunts! Suck my tiny boobs, I ain’t no grass!”

He shook his head, obviously or somewhat humoured. He took a more casual tone. “So… why are you really back? And how? We took a look at you while you were unconscious – you’re not a robot or anything again, so…?”

I grinned my grin. “Ah, you see… I just came down to say hi, you know? Also, the people up there, in the After, didn’t seem too keen to speak to me much. I guess they were still salty over the apocalypse and stuff, you know?” Makoto was visibly shocked, before shaking his head slightly. “That’s bullshit, right?” I smiled. “Eh, slightly. 75-25, maybe. Lemme tell you some solid stuff. There are people Afterwards, although I only met one – and to be honest, I never really liked her in the first place (never got to see the one I wanted to… well, whatever) – and it was only briefly. I also didn’t look around much; I was still more interested in the before and now, rather than the After, yeah? And on how or why I came back…? Let’s just say… a girl has her secrets.”

Naegi brushed his hair a little, fluffing his ahoge downwards – it appeared to be drooping from the stress of his job – whilst sweating a bit. He was obviously uncomfortable, and I was more than happy to capitalise on his discomfort.

“Aren’t you asking the wrong questions though…? Why not ask, ‘Oh, Miss Enoshima, why did you end the world’? Or, how about, ‘Oh, Miss Junko, why did you kill your sister’? Even better, what about ‘Queen Enoshima-sama, why oh why did you remove our memories of our wonderful time at the academy together, including the possible relationships I had? Did I really get it on with your sister, or was I relegated to banging Mrs Kyoko-chan?’ Now those are some questions.” I continued to grin, licking my lips a little – partly for effect, and partly because I hadn’t drunk much water. Or any. Makoto grinded his teeth, his eyes visibly darkened and his brow furrowed.

“You’re not a woman of reason or intelligence, Junko. You’re a girl who’s a few berries short of a fruit pie, with too much time and talent on her hands, who lived a privileged childhood and with all the money in the world and decided you were bored and used your privilege to destroy it all. You’re pathetic; nobody really loved you, and nobody ever will.”

He spoke his lines with a strangely sharp tone to his usual demeanour; he flattened his ahoge into his hair, shoved his chair under the table, and stomped out of the room before I got a word in edgeways.

“But… that’s wrong…” I spoke in an uncharacteristically quiet manner. Didn’t he know anything about me or my older sister? He… actually had us kind of wrong, in a weird way. I sighed a little.

Some guards wheeled me to a more stereotypical jail cell, unstrapped me from the straightjacket, and locked me in the room.

I suppose they took a few days to deliberate how to execute me or whatever; I was given some food and water occasionally; and I counted elephants to keep track of time.

Whether or not they had decided to kill me in some gruesome and public manner is up for debate; however, I never learned what they had decided to do with me, because something else occurred.

It was the morning of Day 3 of my confinement. One of the guards apparently came early for my lunch; they kind of chucked it into the cell, and then rushed off in a bit of a huff. I chugged down the water and scoffed the food, but was surprised to bite into what appeared to be a small package.

I unwrapped it; therein was a key, what appeared to be my old flick-knife (that of which I had last used on a rooftop overlooking the old Hope’s Peak Academy), and a note. I giggled lightly in anticipation, and read the note to myself.

“Yo.

You don’t know who I am, but if I think I know who you are, oh Junko Enoshima, great Queen of Despair and true master of the world, then you will do as I request.

In order to verify your identity for myself, and for you to escape, I have concocted a little bit of a plan. Basically, at exactly midday, all of the electricity in this building will turn off. Expecting a breakout, I imagine all the guards in the vicinity will rush to your cell.

I want you to slaughter as many as you please, and make your way to the hangar deck on this floor (I’m still bemused as to why they built the hangar on the same deck as the prison, but whatever!); I will be waiting your arrival within twenty minutes with a fuelled up tiltrotor plus that memory stick you left to make our escape. I’ll be using up my mole identity in the Future Foundation to help you escape, so my investment better be worth it, oh Leader.

See you soon. Despairfully, a friend.”

I stood up, and the power went out.


	8. Chapter 7 – Escape (Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko makes her escape, and makes a new friend.
> 
> NB: For future reference, and quite frankly for my own ease of writing, all V3 characters will remain with their given names. I can't be bothered with typing "Number 154" or "Circle Cross Triangle Square" or "censored" every single time, so their names are stuck - at least, unless there's a sequel were their true names are revealed or something.

I rushed to the cell door, fiddled with the lock and key, and slammed it open. Shit, I probably made too much noise. Oh well. I sprinted down the corridor (this time, I actually had clothes on – just some prison attire or whatever),and stopped at the corner to see the location of any and all targets.

One guard stacked on a corner; two guards searching a cell. Easy pickings.

I jumped on the corner guard first, cutting upwards into his throat with my knife, then proceeded to grab the gun in his holster and shoot one of his colleagues in the cell. I pulled the bloodied knife out of the throat of the first corpse and chucked it at _just_ the right moment to hit the third guard in the balls, causing him to keel over and scream in agony; I giggled a bit at the man’s displeasure, before shooting him full of lead.

You know, I hate messy stuff like this. I like pushing people into despair, pulling them into my toxic embrace; I have people like Mukuro and Matsuda to do the brunt of my work, and scum like 77B to do the ground work.

Not that I can’t do the messy stuff occasionally. You remember the curried eye gouging of that trustee bloke, right? Or that time I beat the Ultimate Boxer in a totally fair fight (What do you mean, I had a ring of reserve students to create a ring so I could corner him and beat him at his own game on my own will? Everyone knows that reserve students don’t count as people, so it’s a fair fight!)? I’m a messy girl, when I want to be at least.

But I did need a partner, and soon. Can’t let my awesome image be tainted by being totally fake and lame, right? Too cliché.

Anyways.

I took the guard’s guns (one handgun, one taser, and a shotgun), plus one of their batons, and a nice pocket knife (Swiss Army knife; has someone’s name scratched into the blade with a little smiley face and some X’s). I proceeded down the hall, minding the blood on my feet.

Taking a left, I met the guards rushing to my position, and shot them both in the head with a single shot (double bullseye!). I shot a security camera on the corner for good measure. One of the guards had what looked like a grenade of some sort, presumably tear gas, so I took that as well.

A big hefty woman with boobs like my old ones waited for me round another corner. She grinned in her boring uniform, as if to say “Oh, look at me, I’m tough and I’m a guard in the Future Foundation’s biggest facility”. How boring. I pulled out the shotgun and shot her squarely in the chest, blasting her big boobs everywhere. I sawed her head off with the penknife for good measure.

Which is to say, so I could chuck it at the next set of guards rushing to the noise in the corridor. As they were distracted by their superior’s bloody head soaring through the air, I shot them in the kneecaps before taking my knifes and slicing their stomachs open, letting their guts fall all over the floor.

Speaking of, have you ever had human guts to eat? Probably not. It’s not the best; human meat is kind of bad in terms of preparation. You don’t cook it enough, you end up with a nasty case of prion infection; you cook it too much, and it tastes like burnt tires. The brains and the heart have too much protein; the muscles on legs and arms are too dense to chew properly. That’s why you gotta go for the guts, or the stomach, or the genitals. You can fry them for about 5 minutes in some sauce, or you can cook them in a fan oven for about 20 minutes; put some sauce or ketchup on top, chop it up, put it in a sandwich, tortilla, or other wheat thing, or perhaps leave with a side of salad, and you’re done. It’s not the best – often too salty – but not the worst. Good when you’re homeless and your daft older sister is too hungry to rob a supermarket with you.

Crap! I got distracted again with a topic of questionable ethical eating. I’ve only got a few minutes left.

I rushed through another set of blank corridors, shooting a few guys, before walking straight into an ambush. Four guards armed with light machine guns of some kind, plus Makoto Naegi and that pompous rich guy… Byelorussiya? Bye-onara? Byakuya?

I didn’t have time to chit chat, although I pondered why they had been sitting waiting for me. I chucked the tear gas grenade along the floor, plus some shotgun shells; I aimed a handgun to cause a bullet to ricochet, giving me time to dodge round the corner before the bullet would hit one of the shells, causing a chain reaction of shotgun pellets and tear gas, which is like something out of Kevin from that Christmas film’s wet dreams.

The explosion caught them off guard (Ha!), killing three of the guards instantly, blinding the last guard, tearing a hole in Byakuya’s pristine jacket – plus a large chunk of his shoulder – and pushing Naegi to the floor whilst he covered his eyes. I rushed through, shooting the last guard for good measure in the head, and blasting a hole into Byakuya’s other shoulder, before standing over Naegi, who looked completely stunned.

I kneeled next to him, and whispered. “I have a plan to make the world mine. You’re not going to stop it. In fact, you’re going to help me do it. You know how…?

Because what you said about me was wrong.” I smiled in a somewhat melancholy but not fake manner, before kicking upwards into his chin, knocking him out. I stood on Byakuya’s two shoulders, who screamed in agony – although he should be lucky I left him alive – before running out into the hangar deck, into the back of the waiting tiltrotor.

A voice shouted to hold on tight, and I did. The doors of the four bladed ‘copter slammed closed, and I watched as we flew out of the hangar; bullets visibly flew past, and I even saw a few flak cannons firing in our direction, but the pilot blasted one of the doors with some high grade explosives placed earlier, and we flew out of the hole, over the field of white flowers, and into the blood red horizon.

I walked in to thank my rescuer, or possibly to kill them and steal their sweet ride. I hadn’t decided yet.

“Yo! Come on, grab a seat. I need a co-pilot”, the young man shouted from the cockpit. He had somewhat dirty green-brown hair, kind of avocado coloured, with tattoos along his arms, rings on his fingers, and a cigarette in his mouth.

“My Queen, it really is you, huh? Name’s Rantaro Amami, acting head of the Ikebukuro branch of the Remnants of Despair, and your rescuer. Hope the trip was awful?” He grinned placidly.

I giggled a little. "Huh... a violent criminal organisation with a certain colour scheme existing within Ikebukuro...? Wonder where I've heard that before". He chuckled aloud, obviously a little amused. His voice was deep and offputting, but somewhat calming. I sat down and strapped in, nodding in thanks, and watched over the endless horizon of dark water and blood filled sky.


	9. Chapter 8 – White Hot Nuclear Summer (Yasuhiro Hagakure)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ultimate Clairvoyant goes fishing in Alabama.

Somewhere in the southern United States, along the banks of a large lake called Lurleen, the Ultimate Clairvoyant was fishing. Yasuhiro had got somewhat acquainted with the practice following the Final Killing Game, and had discovered that he rather enjoyed it. And so he sat in a little wooden cabin, along the bank of the lake.

Naturally, trying to get a catch wasn’t the only reason he was here. But currently, it was the one he was focusing on.

“…” He grumbled to himself.

Suddenly, his line got caught! He smiled, shouting “Yeah!”, and reeled it in.

It was a large wellington boot.

“Dammit!” He shouted, chucking it into the lake. He turned around miserably and walked to the other side of the bank and across the little street to his main objective (which was only about 20 metres away – 5 metre walk, 15 metres underground).

He looked down into the silo where his comrades were dissecting a large nuclear missile; an LGM-30G Minuteman III, to be precise.

It was one of the many secretive nuclear missile silos placed around the United States (the ones that weren’t publicly known nor acknowledged or within an Air Force base, that is), and the Future Foundation was currently in the process of dissecting many of these different nukes across the world (with information provided by members of governments long since passed) for usage in it’s top secret nuclear programme, Operation Nishina.

Yasuhiro chuckled to himself a little; it must have caught one of the workers by surprise, as a loud noise of a clanging wrench falling down the silo was heard, plus the noise of several people scolding them.

See, as Yasuhiro knew, there were several flaws in Naegi’s grand scheme for nuclear domination: for starters, the Future Foundation had no launching capabilities of it’s own, with many ex-scientists and mechanics with nuclear knowledge having disappeared during the Tragedy and such. It also didn’t really have the man power to go out and dissect nuclear weapons, with many teams being skeleton crews like this one that had to rely on stealth to get their goods.

There was also the bigger problem that someone kept finding out where the nuke teams were, and ambushing them, including taking their precious cargo.

But, Yasuhiro digressed. It was a pleasant enough evening, despite the fact that most of the United States was a wasteland now – the sky itself was permanently an ashen dark red, whilst the country had been largely rendered into a desert, except little boring spots like this in the South and in the Mountain States where nobody really bothered to use weapons of mass destruction. He pondered to himself that this Lake Lurleen place was essentially an oasis in a dead nation.

A radio crackled to life.

He twisted his neck round in surprise, and stumbled back towards the little wooded cabin, where this radio had started making noises. “Eh…” He stated blankly, twisting the dial on the little thing. Most radio and communications devices had been rendered useless during the Tragedy, with many still relying on infrared or wireless comms with what satellites remained in orbit providing coverage.

He heard… music, of some sort. He continued trying desperately to find the right channel, even while the wind had begun to howl. Then, he stopped, as he managed to find the correct frequency. It was a bit tinny, but correct all the same.

It was piano; someone was playing the piano. He didn’t recognise the tune, but it was still beautiful.

One of the workers in the silo shouted to Yasuhiro, their boss. “Hey! Boss! You hear that?” The person cried. The Ultimate Clairvoyant turned round, responding “Yeah, the piano, right? Sounds wonderful, huh?”

The worker carried themselves to the top of the silo, resting their arms on the green stained metal brim. “Nah, mate – sounds like the wind is getting worse, yeah?” He stated flatly. Yasuhiro turned curiously, finally noticing the sudden change in the winds. He looked to the west, and saw an imposing formation of helicopters rushing towards them.

He barely had time to reach his gun in the cabin next to his fishing rod before their miniguns opened fire, cutting up the worker at the top of the silo instantly and tearing to pieces much of the equipment around the silo; Yasuhiro got hit with wooden shrapnel from the bombardment of part of the cabin in his hand, but continued to dodge the actual fire; he ran around like a headless chicken, shouting to himself and firing his handgun into the air in the rough direction of the helicopters.

They landed swiftly, with several black and white clad soldiers rushing out into the silo, swiftly executing many of the workers and soldiers within but being careful not to touch or damage the warheads or nuclear material that had been extracted. Another two soldiers got off and tackled Yasuhiro, who had continued to dodge all of the bullets. His glass ball fell from his jacket and smashed into a million pieces.

The last helicopter finished landing; it wasn’t an attack helicopter, like the other two, but a larger transport vehicle. One of the doors opened, and someone clad in dark navy military fatigues styled in a traditional school uniform hopped out. Lying on the ground, Yasuhiro couldn’t make out their face.

They spoke calmly, with no particular emotion nor tone in their voice. “You have an unnatural ability to dodge bullets, don’t you?” They said, seemingly expecting a response. Yasuhiro nodded quickly.

The person pulled out a large handgun, probably a Desert Eagle, and shot him in the stomach. He screamed, thrashing in the arms of the two soldiers holding him down. The person walked up to him, knelt a little, and stuck their finger directly into the wound, twisting, all while Yasuhiro continued to squirm.

They pulled their finger out; and the sound of what sounded like them sucking their finger resounded.

“Y’know, we were only here to kill some hope lovers and steal the warheads as per usual, but this is an unexpected find… An Ultimate, and a survivor of not one but two killing games; a member of the 78th Class, no less…” They chuckled darkly, before pulling out a syringe and stabbing Yasuhiro in the wound with it, pushing the plunger. He grunted in the pain, before realising it had gone numb. He still didn’t get a good look at the leader of the group.

They stood up again, and paced, seemingly in thought, though the dramatics of it made it seem fake. They stopped, appearing to reach a conclusion. “Tell you what – let’s make a deal!”

The two soldiers got off Yasuhiro, and he reached his upper body up a little, feeling a little nauseous, and faced the leader.

She was a woman, apparently in her late teenage years. She didn’t have any noticeable features, although she wore frameless glasses that reflected in the dark light of the sky and off of her dark hair. The main thing he noticed was her eyes, which didn’t appear to have any semblance of happiness, or any emotion, in them; they were devoid of all light. She looked down over him, with her hand on her hip.

“Alrighty! You have two options: You can either die here of blood-loss, or, you can accept my deal. I only want two things from you: Your undying loyalty to me and me alone, and one of your long dreadlocks.” She spoke plainly.

He nodded in response, before twisting his face. “Wait… what was that last part…?” He spoke, confused.

She pounced on him, ignoring his wound, her eyes suddenly lit up with excitement. “I want your hair! A big old spike of it should do the trick! I love it, it’s been in the same room as the rest of the 78th class! It has experienced the despair of Junko Enoshima and the hope of Makoto Naegi! It holds a piece of all your wants and needs, your hopes and dreams!” She bounced up and down excitedly, like a guinea pig wheeking for salad.

He stood up in total confusion, brushing the woman off of him. One of the soldiers helped him up, muttering to him that she could be like this sometimes.

Yasuhiro looked to the sky, and grimaced, holding his neck up and his wound down. “I… don’t really have a choice, huh?”

The woman went back to her previous state. “Nah, not really. Sorry.” She smiled a little, before taking out a pair of scissors (which Yasuhiro recognised from… somewhere) and swiftly slicing a bale of his dreadlocks off, before smelling it, licking it, and stuffing it in one of her many pockets along with the scissors. She held out a hand, telling him that “We have lots of specialists and equipment for ourselves, y’know. You’ll be fine!”, and somewhat dragging him to a bed in the helicopter. He knelt up again.

“Sorry, you never told me your name or affiliation…?” He spoke a little stutteringly.   
  
“Ah, I got ahead of myself, huh?” She smiled a little, this time somewhat kindly. “Let me introduce myself. My name is…”


	10. Chapter 9 – One-way flight to Tokyo (Junko Enoshima, Rantaro Amami)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amami speaks to Junko on the flight to their new home.

I sat in the cockpit of the tiltrotor, pulling on my boots. Amami had obviously been prepared for my arrival, providing a set of my old recognisable clothes, hair dye, makeup, and the like – although he said that he couldn’t do anything for my boobs, sadly. I guess I’ll just have to grow back into them. Ha!

The man hummed to himself. Noticing I had finished changing, he opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He looked a little bit deep in thought, before continuing.

“How much do you… remember? I mean, in terms of… after your death, I guess?” He spoke in a somewhat fragmented manner. I wondered if Japanese wasn’t actually his first language; perhaps he was Okinawan? More likely, just nervous. No matter.

I explained to him briefly that I had a vague understanding of how my lil’ crew of despair dolts were doing, but since I was kinda focused on both the BIG PICTURE of the world as a whole, the daily lives and developing story of the leftovers of my classmates, and of course my super secret plan, that I hadn’t taken much time to consider the cannon fodder.

He narrowed his eyes a little, almost in annoyance. Was it anger, maybe? I thought to myself – would a person infected with the despair video be capable of anger or annoyance without it manifesting into despair, even just a few nuggets of it? Then again, I still don’t truly know how effective Mitarai and myself’s work truly was, given the little timeframe and test subjects we had.

He cleared his throat, and started speaking a tale of somewhat pitiful woe. “Well, you got most of that right. Lemme update you on the details of your own side though.”

“Your death was a stunning death-knell for much of the remnants. The main leaders, whom you know as the 77th Class B, continued their hardworking campaign of terror across the world; some of the most amazing atrocities, some of which you yourself previewed in your final class trial, included the usage of a Big Bang Monokuma (y’know, the massive one that was the brain child of Monaca Towa and Kazuichi Souda) to flatten much of Moscow before eventually meeting it’s messy grave next to the Ostankino Tower; the daring and defiant defacing of several world monuments in the Monokuma robot’s image; the mass murder and mass suicide of almost the entire population of Novoselic, under Sonia Nevermind’s guidance; amongst others. This, combined with the many famines, diseases, wars and conflicts – including and up to brief nuclear exchanges, mainly spurred on by Remnants of Despair within governments – caused the deaths of between half and two thirds of the entire planet’s population. The radiation and multiple chemical and biological weapons usages has also effectively cut off the world’s fertility, with under 5% of the world currently being fertile.”

“But this may have been all for naught; the stunning defeat of the “Warriors of Hope” faction in Towa city was a particularly awful blow, with most of the Towa Company’s production now being put towards the Future Foundation. Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the Remnants of Despair, presumably Izuru Kamakura, who never claimed any official affiliation with the group, betrayed us, allowing the Future Foundation to round up the entire ex-Class 77-B as well as a large portion of the other remnants, with many being summarily executed. And, with the retreat of Monaca Towa into the upper atmosphere, your second death, and the failure of the Final Killing Game plus the brief usage of the Hope Video, it had seemed for many that hope would win and despair would be relegated to the confines of history.”

“No such luck. As you know, the world has been in a stalemate between hope and despair for over a year; people watch the rising and falling death rates on the TV while eating breakfast; life goes on even while the world continues to burn. We’ve had to adapt ourselves to this just as the Future Foundation have, although to not as much success as those bastards. We’ve diversified, factionalised, etcetera etcetera. We kind of have a large communications network; we still have an iron grip on most of the old world’s governments; and we still have a certain number of spies in the Future Foundation, although this still dwindles. We still don’t have a true leader, a Queen for our Despair, even if many have tried to unite us – the biggest issue usually being personality, since none of us are THE Junko Enoshima.”

“And that’s about it, really.” He sighed, finishing his talk. I raised an eyebrow; he… hadn’t really shed much light on the situation, since most of the stuff he mentioned I could have guessed at. I needed names, dates, and other such things. I decided to speak up.

“You mentioned yourself as the acting head of the Ikebukuro branch. What’s up with that?” I complained, in such a way that made it super obvious I wanted more info.

“Well”, he said, “As with many decentralised organisations, we’ve got cells across the world; Japan, as the ultimate centre of the Tragedy, has the most cells across the country, with Tokyo having at least one for each ward of the city; for example, the Ikebukuro branch (we call them branches, since cells makes us sound like terrorists. Which we are, of course, but one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter/anarchist/whatever, y’know?) is only one of around 3 different branches in the Toshima ward of Tokyo; much of our group, with the physical base being a renovated warehouse near an old cargo facility, is made up of old Kyokuta-kai members who kind of mixed despair with their old activities. We also make a good amount of money and publicity out of our underground merchandising!” He giggled a little in an almost adorable manner, before clearing his throat and continuing.

“I mean, if you look out the window now, you can probably see the shape of Tokyo in the distance. We’re lucky I fuelled up before we left, given the distance between the new Hope’s Peak Academy, strategically built on a mountain plain in northern Hokkaido and Tokyo. We’re…” He stopped, before pointing vaguely at the windshield, “based somewhere over in this direction. Tokyo is in a pretty bad state, but better than most cities around the world – many flattened by bombings and riots and such, but only the southern most wards were desolated here; problem is, the rest of the city has become a hornets nest of scum and villainy. The city was too damn populous before the Tragedy, and now? Every inch is claimed by every kind of sodding bastard. It’s amazing!” He cackled a little, obviously finding this little fact quite unpleasant and therefore a little despairing.

He began our descent; Amami was a surprisingly adventurous pilot, managing to dodge the occasional AA-fire and RPG aimed in our direction; we flew between a few ruined skyscrapers, before settling down on a nondescript helipad on a low lying warehouse kind of building nestled next to a large lorry cargo lot place as well as a bunch of imposing, blackened and ashen buildings as memorials to the decadence of the old postmodern lifestyle of the city, the occasional pink or orange advert or sign flaking off amongst the barren waste of space that was the burnt out ruins of the surrounding city.

We hopped out, Amami holding his hand out like a gentleman as I walked off, with my fist landing squarely in his jaw in response. He laughed goodheartedly in response, before looking over the ruinous skyline and spreading out his arms.

“Home sweet home, yeah?” He shouted to me and the bustling, smoking city around us.


	11. Chapter 10 – A Queen of Despair (Junko Enoshima, Rantaro Amami) // Chapter 11 – A President of Hope (Byakuya Togami, Kyoko Kirigiri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A two sided chapter - where hope begins to fall, and despair begins to rise. 
> 
> NB: I kept revising these two chapters because I just felt as though I couldn't do it the justice I wanted to do in my head. I hope it's alright though; for my sanity's sake and for my self worth, please consider commenting on the chapter and the work as a whole, because I only have two comments so far and the silence is killing me, ha! Also, tell your friends or whatever. But still - thanks for continuing to read this work! It's nowhere near finished yet - and trust me, this ride is only just beginning...

As Amami began to descend the staircase into the somewhat grimy looking warehouse building, I raised a hand to my brow and looked at the horizon of the fallen city. The sky burned red, an ashen memorial of the despair since passed; and yet life in the city and around the world had appeared to have returned to what could be considered “normal”. It was as I feared.

I shook my head in disgust. All of my effort, wasted, as the world once again descends into the foul degeneracy of hopeful boredom. What was it all for?

Somewhere else, a large transport plane filled with medical equipment was flying over some hostile looking, snowy mountains. Byakuya Togami, heir apparent to the Togami family (now deceased) and Corporation (now defunct), was lying in a semi-comatose position on a bed whilst the plane rattled through the air. Kyoko Kirigiri stood over him, her eyes sharp.

“You really are somewhat lucky, aren’t you?” She spoke over the turbulence to the man lying down. He made a notion of his head. She shook her head, before sitting down next to Makoto, who had fallen asleep in one of the chairs nearby; his head was still wrapped in bandages and such from where I had hit him. Togami looked at them, then glanced at the ceiling of the plane above them, before blacking out again, but thinking to himself…

Togami hated existence.

Meanwhile, I was walking down into the seedy looking warehouse building. I held my nose between my fingers in disgust at the stench; there were flies everywhere, blood and shit stained the walls. It smelled almost as bad as my late sister.

Amami grinned. “Don’t you love the smell? It always makes me smile.” We passed a group of muscular men sitting round a busted table, held up with a large dildo. One of them was holding a revolver to his head, sweating profusely, and giggling madly to himself. He pulled the trigger, and everyone leaped into cheers and jeers as he survived. “5-bullet Russian Roulette. Apparently, one of these guys met some kid on an island near a crashed plane who played it all the time. You gotta have some luck to do it, though. Or balls. Or some decent level of despair.” Amami explained briefly.

We walked past another group, this time what looked like a group of old people, all of whom were hooked up to some kind of intravenous machine, which had the kanji for heroin written on the side.

It was all… terribly cliché. “Amami, don’t any of you have any, like, style? Like, this shit is outta some kind of shitty B-Movie. None of your gang seem to be having any fun with despair, you know?” I cried aloud. A nude man, his small and limp penis swinging, was walking past me, and, looking me in the eyes, dropped his jaw, before bowing profusely and sprinting away, shouting something aloud. He cocked my head a little, before continuing along with Amami.

The plane had landed; a large airstrip carved into the side of a mountain laid next to a large modern looking facility – Togami was paying after all, so they could afford the greatest healthcare in the world. It was a hospital for the superrich, even in an era where money didn’t really matter since the world had essentially ended.

Togami was rushed through a series of white corridors with glass walls, the others all sprinting behind his bed. The entire right side of his body screamed in agony, with his shoulder nearly blackened and red from an apparent infection, with blood and pus from the large shotgun wound (with a large enough bruise from a boot) oozing all over the bed.

He was still unconscious, though. He was walking a tightrope in an abyss, and hopped off, landing in an ornate chair surrounded by dead bodies and money on fire.

Before the killing game, he had never appreciated anything. He had everything in the world, and took everything for granted in an arrogant stride. But when he learnt that this world that was to be his was in ashes, his fortune gone and his family and it’s legacy dead, he had fallen into a deep despair. In that class trial, he had realised that, in an astounding act of karmic retribution, the world he had failed to appreciate had turned to naught but ash; and he had no standing in the world that was left.

And so, he loathed all of existence; he hated all life, especially that of his own. He wanted everything to die, and he wanted all the corpses to be his own. His despair manifested into a sick form of greed and self-preservation; the hope he announced to all at the class trial was not one of dreams, but one of wants and needs, to stop the ash of the world falling through his fingers once more.

Myself and Rantaro stepped into a somewhat more clean and brightly lit corridor; I noticed that we were starting to attract a crowd, many of whom cowered before us, not showing their faces. I grinned a little, but a question remained on my mind.

“Amami, you seem to be calmer than most despite apparently being a leader of despair; what is it that makes you despair, then?” I queried. He continued walking, but looked over his shoulder a little in my direction. “Oh, you know. The usual, cliché stuff again; I slaughtered my entire high school with my best friend as the world fell into chaos; I watched the despair video with her and tried to top myself with a milkshake made of painkillers; I self harm regularly, and I kill people all the time. But the thing that makes me most despair? The loss of most of my family, and the state of the world… But what can you do?” He shrugged a little, allowing his long sleeves to fall, showing off a huge range of reddish and white scars across his arms.

His eyes weren’t full of despair, though. A single tear fell from the left one.

Makoto watched as the surgeon – a large autonomous medical robot, developed by the Togami Corporation before it’s collapse – cut off the blackened stain of a large chunk of Togami’s body. He winced; instinctively placing his hand on his head, before irritably pushing his hair down. “Byakuya…” He mumbled. Kyoko sighed, and wrapped an arm around him. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. He survived the collapse of his beloved family and company, right? I have to be honest – I imagine he cared a lot more about them than he does his arm.” She nodded, explaining calmly to her husband in a collected voice. She was certainly the calmer head among the pair.

She left him to observe the operation, and walked the corridors of the facility, before stumbling upon a snow-covered garden in the centre of the facility. She shivered a little, pulling her coat tighter around her, and sat down under a large, somewhat ruined Torii arch.

She coughed a little, before raising her head to the sky. This high up, it wasn’t quite as much dark red as it was bright pink; a light amount of snow was falling. She stuck her tongue out, letting a snowflake fall onto it, and giggled a little from the cold sensation.

I had walked into what looked like the ground floor of the warehouse; a large, open plan room, with around a hundred people in various states of sitting, standing and such. Amami cleared his throat loudly, and they all turned. The room fell deadly silent.

We continued walking, in the direction of the front of the room, where a stage sort of area with a broken burgundy sofa was placed. The silence was deafening; myself and my new pal walked through the crowd. Their faces were pale; often scarred, often somewhat scared looking, but many smiled in a sick sort of manner.

Somewhere at the back, someone began chanting the words “Zetsubō no megami” – Despair Goddess. It didn’t take long to catch on; slowly, the crowd began to wail this strange chant of Despair Goddess, whilst I inched ever closer to the front of the room.

Finally, I sat down on the crappy looking sofa. I resided myself into the seiza position, as formally befitting of my royal status. Amami stood, and bowed lowly to me; and the room full of my despairing underlings did the same. I grinned, and waved my hand casually; an obvious signal to make Amami introduce me and make a grand speech, which he duly did.

“Ladies, gents, friends and enemies: The impossible has occurred. Our god, our queen, has returned from the depths of death, to lead us once more into the dark abyss of despair. Junko Enoshima – Queen of Despair.” A loud cheer went through the room.

He walked a little to the side of the stage, and grabbed what looked like a heavy but ornate chest. “My Queen, if you would…?” He motioned towards it, setting it down in front of me. I didn’t feel like it was gonna explode; the tone of his voice, the atmosphere, and his position didn’t add up to a negative. I opened it carefully, and the contents glimmered before me.

“Are these…? Wait, no. That can’t be, right?” I spoke gleefully yet innocently, in a way I hadn’t in a while. Amami smiled, and pulled the crown jewels out of the casket, carefully dressing me up in them in a quick manner.

“I present to you, the Ikebukuro branch of the Remnants of Despair, the Queen of Despair, Junko Enoshima – in the full regalia of the Queen of the United Kingdom of Britain (y’know, England? The last was was called Liz…)! She is our new queen, our god, and the rightful leader of all those who would despair!” He kneeled before me, placing his head on the floor. As all the people in the room did the same, he muttered to me – “Those damn things cost me thirty men to get, but I knew from a friend that you always wanted to be a queen, so I thought…”. I giggled a little, and patted him on the head, before standing on the sofa myself and raising the Sovereign Sceptre and Orb aloft.

“Please, stand, my remnants. This is no time to stand on ceremony, y’know? As your new ruler, I command you: Follow my plan, and we will bring not just the world, but all the universe and all of existence into despair. Follow me as you have always done, and together we will bring about my will across the universe. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, you ungrateful pieces of shit.” I cackled dramatically, before setting myself down.

Amami smiled, before raising a hand to lift me up from the sofa, and we walked to a side room together.

Somewhere else, a girl sighed to herself; and someone was playing piano.


	12. Chapter 12 – Calm Waters (Rantaro Amami, Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amami and Junko have a discussion.

I slammed the door shut on the cheering, frenzied freaks that I would call my new army. I sighed, taking off the robes and stuff (though leaving on my new crown, because, DAMN! It’s awesome. Heavy, yes, but awesome? Hell yeah!).

“That was a bit over the top, don’t you think?” I grumbled to Amami. He was still grinning, obviously ecstatic and pleased with the performance. He motioned me through a set of doors, and I realised that we had moved underneath the ground of the warehouse.

Amami walked on, before placing his hand on a bit of wall. A noise sounded, and a part of the wall nearby parted, revealing a lift. We stepped inside.

“Obviously, as I explained on the flight here, our branch does have a bit more to it than on the surface…” He calmly spoke. He pressed one of the lift buttons, and we descended. “This place was actually a warehouse built for the old Japanese Self Defence Forces; when the Tragedy occurred, the yakuza of Ikebukuro – many of whom, as I stated previously, are now under our wings – stormed the facility, and seized it for good measure. We’ve outfitted it a lot, but it’s a damn good place that looks crap on the outside. I think it’s perfect.”

The elevator stopped, and the doors shifted open, revealing a large cavernous room; it was modern, and had a high tech feel to it; the walls were painted with neon screens and various maps and such. A large table sat in the centre, painted black and white in the shape of a Monokuma face, whilst a whole bunch of computers ran along the sides. Amami hopped over a railing, and spoke to the faculty who were milling around. Another silence came over the room, and several people bowed, before sitting around the large table. Amami motioned to the head of the table, and I sat down, whilst he sat nearby.

“Welcome to the war room!” He stated flatly; “Also known as the situation room; here, we’ve planned out our various schemes and operations and such.” He touched the table, and a map appeared across the face; it showed a map of the world in various different colours, with various other diagrams and such.

“What with your super analytical prowess, I’m sure you can understand all of this?” He queried. I nodded; for your benefits, I was looking at a factional map of the world; it was coded to show the various different nations and governments that remained – somehow – from the old world, as well as territory owned or influenced by the Future Foundation; it also showed the spheres of influence for the various factions of the Remnants of Despair.

“Boss, you mentioned a few times that you have ‘a plan’. Care to elaborate?” Amami queried again.

I looked at the table. There were quite a few names on it; but one name was clearly the largest. I raised an eyebrow, before standing up and walking round the room. Amami himself stood up in response, almost in surprise. I started singing. Don’t know what; unlike my ugly ass sister, I wasn’t actually born with a decent singing voice. But still.

“Yo, Amami… What’s up with all this?” I queried, spreading my arms out.

He cocked his head, visibly confused. “Uh… what’s all what about?”

“You know. This. This whole thing. It stinks.” I said. And then I sprinted across the room, and tackled him, putting him into a figure-4 headlock before pulling out a knife and holding it to his neck.

“See, none of it is adding up, really. This map was the final straw. You’re too calm, y’know? It’s not right. At all. First you’re too calm; then you say that most of your family is gone, but not all; then you mention your best friend, even though I ain’t seen nobody whose too chummy with you outside of a leader-follower way; I saw your little pussy-ass tear dribbling down your face; and lastly, there’s this bullshit map…” I growled at him, visibly pissed off. The staff around us were obviously bemused, and divided between their loyalty to their superior, and their obedience to their god.

Amami gulped.

“Why isn’t your name on the map, Amami?” I grinned horrifically. Amami grinded his teeth. “Welp, I guess the gig’s up, huh?” He smiled.

“You missed out one thing, by the way – ‘ACTING’ head of the Ikebukuro branch.” He continued smiling, as I let him up from the uncomfortable position. “You know, you shouldn’t worry. I didn’t rescue you out of a negative purpose; to be honest with you, I saw an opening, and I simply took the opportunity to grab you while I could. No hard feelings or anything, really.” He chuckled to himself.

I nodded, then waved my hand, signalling that I wanted an explanation. He continued: “So, I guess you want two things. First, and most obvious: I’m not the boss of the remnants of the Remnants of Despair. Not even close, actually. I’m not really the whole leadership type; I’m the go-getter, gung-ho adventurer kind of guy, y’know? And that brings me onto point two…”

“The despair video had a best before date.”

My eyes widened, in between horror and surprise. Did he mean…? “Yeah. You didn’t test it enough over a massive period of time, I guess; the despair video only has a certain time period of effect; it’s between 2 and 3 years, I’d say, and it’s not like you can rewatch it. A single video is kinda boring to rewatch, and this one wasn’t the best to begin with, since you just jury-rigged the whole thing together. And, of course, we can’t rewind time – the catastrophic effects on the viewer and others is permanent, meaning people are left with the consequences of their actions, and no Junko-fied despair with it. Meaning that instead of being full of despair, the whole world is a shitshow full of traumatised bored people who hate themselves and the world. No cool Junko-despair; just misery.” He chuckled to himself.

“But, as I say, I’m not the boss. I can take you to her, if you want.” He smiled again, pointing to the map on the table.

I waltzed over to it; the surprises kept on coming, and I was starting to get excited once more. The tension, the surprises, the cliffhangers and the despair… I could feel the inevitable coming on.

“She’s got a base kind of near to the belly of the beast, if you will; if you’re happy with me taking you to see her via the Shinkansen, then we can be off soon.” He explained. I raised my head out of thought. “What’s she like? Like, who even is she?”

Amami’s face fell flat, as if remembering a bad dream. “Well, she’s my… friend, I guess. But she’s also, well…”


	13. Chapter 13 – The One they Fear (Tsumugi Shirogane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day in the life of...   
> NB: Still a little forlorn over the lack of reception my fanfiction is getting... I'm advertising it constantly on my tumblr etc, but I can't feel but be half-hearted. Oh well; I'm still writing many, many chapters - my backlog is currently over 30, compared to this 13th here. It won't be ending any time soon, I promise.

She woke up with a start. It was moderately late in the morning from the looks of it, and the light of a red sun streamed onto her face. Her dark, curly hair was a complete mess, with a whole bunch of it all over her face.

Curling into a ball, she tried to gather up the energy to get out of bed. It was warm and comfy; she didn’t want to get her plain self out into the plain world just yet. She wanted just that little bit more of sleep.

Sadly, good things must come to an end. She scrunched her eyes up, yawned, and stood up, her bare feet touching the cold wooden floor.

Her name is Tsumugi Shirogane. She was in her late teens; moderately tall, somewhat athletically built; she didn’t have any redeeming or unique features, except somehow bright yet dark navy eyes.

She trudged through the flat she lived in, reaching for the bathroom, and opened the door, careful to mind the bucket of human flesh that she’d left lying next to the bathtub with the corpse in it. She grabbed her glasses from the sink, put some toothpaste on her brush, and started brushing her teeth while taking a leak. She spat out the toothpaste into the sink, and stared into the mirror, and into the abyss of her eyes.

“Today’s the day, huh?” She spoke to herself. She reached for a bottle of liquid, and put her head into the sink, rinsing her hair with the liquid and staining it to a dark navy, almost – but not quite – the same colour as her eyes – before brushing it into a long, straight style, flowing down to her knees. She went out into the hall of the flat, carrying the bucket with her, and opened a window, before chucking the contents outside; she heard a bunch of dogs barking, obviously happy. She noticed an elderly couple walking nearby.

“Hey-o, over there! How’s it going?” She shouted across the street into the quiet morning. The couple stopped and waved back. “Tsumugi, you’re up early, dear? Hopefully you’re not coming down with something, yes?” The older of the couple spoke, before shaking their heads and moving on.

Tsumugi smiled to herself, before hopping down and grabbing the flask of acid from one of the cupboards; she took a bit of time cleaning out the bathtub and melting down the contents into the drain, before going to get dressed.

As she got changed, she opened one of the cupboards in her bedroom, which heaved open in what sounded like a groan; it was what looked like a small Shinto shrine, with various objects lying around, from pieces of hair, an eyepatch, some scissors, among many other things. She picked up a large bra, and sniffed it; her legs trembled, and her cheeks went bright red. “Today’s the day…” She smiled ecstatically to herself, sweating a little.

Outside, it had started to rain.

She finished getting dressed, into a plain looking school uniform type of thing, closed the cupboards, grabbed her bag and other stuff, chugged down a morning milkshake protein drink, and pulled an umbrella out from next to the door, before unlocking the dozen or so locks and security measures, putting in the passcode, defusing the claymore mine, and stepping outside to reactivate all of them.

She hopped merrily down the corridor, humming to herself. It stank, presumably from the mixture of old piss (not to mention the salty smell of dried semen, mainly from the top of the large dildo attached to a strap-on harness left in a corner) and rotting corpses from the other apartments (since she had murdered everyone else on the floor in order to get some good privacy). As she walked down, minding the stains, she pondered to herself that this would be the part where a ghoul jumps out of a door, says some quirky one-liner, and proceeds to munch on her body – though, she theorised, in that universe she’d probably be a ghoul anyway, meaning another ghoul attacking her would probably want to develop their kakuja.

She finished her walk to a nearby lift and pressed the button; tapping her foot impatiently whilst it creaked up the shaft. She yawned; if it wasn’t for today’s important events, she probably would have got a bit more shut-eye. Saying that, she had been up late; the ride home from the Americas got in late, and then she stayed up watching various stuff and doing various activities with herself, so, she realised, it really was kind of her own fault she was tired.

She stepped into the elevator, and went down to the ground floor (four stories down, despite being quite a tall place). She started humming “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” to herself under her breath as she descended. She started to pick at her nails; she needed to re-do them again, but she forgot earlier.

A little “Ding!” sounded, and the lift doors opened into the reception area; it had been stripped somewhat bare, with the occasional flicker of electric lighting; she made a mental note to fix it at some point.

A group of rats was eating an old corpse to the side of the large room, lying underneath a large graffitied Monokuma. Tsumugi grinned a little, and pulled out some food from her bag and chucked it in their direction.

She walked out of the reception area, and into the dark sunlight of the outside. The darkened shadow of the stadium in which she lived, mixed with the darkened red sun and the hanging dead bodies from the top of it. She liked these decorations; by hanging the person from metal hooks jammed into their skin, they get a long, unpleasant death from blood loss, whilst also being good food for carrion birds; and on top of it, the dripping blood allows the floor underneath the dead to be painted. It matched the aesthetic.

The rain had got much worse; she pulled out the umbrella again and put it up, allowing the water to drift off it and splashing the ground below.

She was going to go meet the people coming into the station nearby. On the way, she met several people, many of whom she knew on a name basis. She walked through a market area, mainly divided between merchandise sales and food sales – she got some oranges.

Some children ran past her, chasing a three-legged dog; she stopped them and the dog, gave it some meat, and patted the kids on the head, asking them politely to calm down a little.

Walking down the somewhat heightened, hilly area, she watched another group of children playing in a nearby park; some of them waved to her, and came running, and she patted them on the head and told them to stay safe and get back to their fun.

It was only about a ten-minute journey from her home to the station, but she liked taking long “Mystery tours” to allow her to view all of her domain. This time, as she was walking, she came across a long, pitch back alleyway. She picked out her phone, turned on her torch, and paced through it calmly, following what looked like a spark.

Tsumugi came across a battered looking humanoid figure; it had been badly beaten and was beginning to rust. She knelt down, holding her umbrella over it to avoid the spitting rain, and wiped some of the dirt and rust off of what looked like a dog-tag attached to it of sorts.

“Hope Robot – Ultimate Edition: ID K1-B0. Return to: Tokuichi Towa…”

The rest of the section was illegible. Either way, Tsumugi’s darkened eyes began to sparkle with joy. The day could wait; she heaved the heavy machine onto her shoulders and began to drag it back home to repair it. What a morning! She was getting more excited by the minute.


	14. Chapter 14 – 弾丸列車; DanganRessha; Bullet Train (Junko Enoshima, Rantaro Amami)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko Enoshima goes on the Shinkansen.

The shinkansen blasted across the northern Japanese countryside, making a deafening roar for anything remotely close.

Amami had explained, as they waited earlier on the rusted, damaged platform, that a good investment of time and resources had gone into reclaiming the bullet-train from the vying factions of the despairing Japan; it had been refurbished in the despair style, and outfitted with various counterattack mechanisms to ensure no damage could be done (Including to the tunnels and railways themselves). It was often used for transporting both VIPs as well as equipment to various front lines and conflict zones; it was, in truth, indestructible and absolutely awesome.

He looked at me, as I was resting my head on my fist, gazing out of a window whilst absentmindedly twiddling my hair. The countryside was in many parts a huge wasteland now, ravaged by bombs, fire and general warfare; smoking plumes covered the area, with sheep, cows and other animals often mistaking human corpses for dinner. Many of the rice paddies and other farms such as beans, wheat and barley farms lay deserted and decaying, left to rot and watered with nothing more than blood and rain.

Amami sighed; despite having the ultimate skill of super analytical prowess, I really couldn’t get over my defining weakness: boredom. The various documents, maps and photos strewn across the table, all with the same sort of subjects – dates, names, targets, etcetera – had been set aside for dishes of food and such. I find myself thinking that if Amami had been my shitty sister, I would be in the middle of an engrossing discussion and murder fest right now, but his moody, informative attitude of the moment had damaged the mood of the atmosphere.

There remained the biggest issue, for me at least, that the large majority of my own forces no longer held my despair. Could I really encourage them into helping me in the way I do things if they couldn’t think like me and become my surrogates? Especially of the leaders, such as Amami.

But, as he had explained, the glimmer of hope remained in this girl – Tsumugi Shirogane. Born two months before Rantaro Amami, she had a keen intellect beyond her years; she had a generally pleasant and rich family, all of whom were killed in a car crash in her infancy, leaving her in the charge of the state. She was eventually fostered with the family who lived next door to Amami, and the two quickly became best friends.

Or so he thought. He had always noted that she became bored very easily, and she was known to be a genuine thrill seeker, whilst also an astute thinker in terms of philosophy, sociology, and the entertainment industry. She also thoroughly enjoyed cosplay, although she didn’t get to enjoy it much because her foster family were stingy with money.

At school, she became increasingly asocial, acting in a careless manner to others and being ignored by everyone else. When she came out as a pansexual, she dealt with horrendous abuse from her family, and classmates, by somehow essentially brushing it all off. She appeared to suffer from an extreme level of dissociation from her high level of philosophical thinking and almost certain mental illness, often speaking to herself or even what looked like to others who weren’t there, as if trying to break a 4th wall that didn’t exist.

That is, until she was scouted by the Hope’s Peak Academy, around the same time as Amami, for the 79th class batch. Whilst Amami was granted the temporary talent of “Ultimate Adventurer” - mainly for his minor adventures abroad with his rich family where he always seemed to either magically lose a sister and then regain her or find some kind of new artifact - Tsumugi wasn’t given any official talent, mainly as – although she showed huge potential – they couldn’t quite identify what her talent actually was. She mentioned to Amami once, in a general conversation, that she had wanted to be the Ultimate Cosplayer; but the label eventually granted to her temporarily was the strange title of “Ultimate Symbiont”. The description was garnered due to her perceived talent to gain the talents and traits at a lightening rate from the others around her, and the ability to act upon those traits at will – even if only held for short periods of time.

However, the abuse and bullying from her peers continued, even while she apparently ignored it, some referring to her as “The Ultimate Leech”, and other such things.

But things came to a head when the Tragedy of Hope’s Peak Academy occurred. She and Amami had been sent the Despair Video by a mutual acquaintance, and, upon viewing it, her behaviour didn’t change – in fact, it got better. She admitted in a rare fit of emotion that the creator of the video was “like her… bored and superior to others”. She wholeheartedly accepted the motivation of despair, as she came to realise that her unrealised talents had forced her to become bored with all of existence, in a mirror of Junko.

The rest was almost like a reflection of Amami’s time during the Tragedy; they mass murdered their school in a brutal manner, forcing their families to die or abandon them, and went on to become central leaders of the Remnants of Despair; but Tsumugi advanced far quicker than Amami, and became increasingly distant to him. And, after the effects of the despair video wore off on Amami, she called him a traitor to all of despair and abandoned him completely, although she left him in charge of the Ikebukuro branch.

Now, after the news that Amami had somehow broken the newly resurrected Junko Enoshima out from the headquarters of the Future Foundation at the new Hope’s Peak Academy facility, Tsumugi had contacted him on the phone out of the blue, blankly asking for his precious cargo to come visit her at her “top secret villain lair” in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

I looked up from all of the notes again. Crap; I got kinda engrossed in them, huh? Amami’s fallen asleep. That’s totes adorbs.

I got up, put a little blanket that came with each seat over him, and walked down the carriage. The soft sound of the train inside was nothing compared to the roar outside; but she felt somewhat calm, listening to the rhythm of the train going full pelt on the maglev rail.

I noticed lightning strike about nine times somewhere in the distance; the flashes caught my eyes, and I could have sworn to have seen some kind of figure in the bright light.

Speaking of bright lights, I’m surprised nobody’s asked me about “the afterwards” yet. Hmph.

I needed a piss.


	15. Chapter 15 – The Miscellaneous Events of the Life of Nagito Komaeda, Part 1 (Nagito Komaeda)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nagito and Hajime eat some lunch.

Nagito Komaeda, the Ultimate Lucky Student, professional disaster, and self-proclaimed Ultimate Hope, was feeding Hajime Hinata some salad. They were sitting alone in the cafeteria of the new Hope’s Peak Academy; all of their colleagues were off doing ‘important business’ or whatever, so they were all alone.

So, Nagito had brought Hinata some lunch, and was in the process of feeding him mouthful by mouthful of a plate of Caesar salad with a plastic fork.

The fork snapped and hit Komaeda squarely in the face. He sighed. Ignoring Hinata’s giggles, he saw that he didn’t have a drink, so he offered to get him a can of orange juice. Hajime accepted the offer.

Komaeda waltzed over to a nearby vending machine, and flipped a coin into the slot. An orange juice popped out, and he opened it; but it sprayed into his face, catching him by surprise, and he dropped the drink… which then proceeded to bounce out of his hand, hit something on the machine, causing it to malfunction and empty it’s contents all over the floor.

And so, Nagito and Hajime ended up with a table full of salad and orange juices.

But Komaeda had a bagel.


	16. Chapter 16 – Shrine to Dead Gods (Tsumugi Shirogane, Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Despairfully Fateful Encounter.

The train had stopped at it’s final destination, the Sapporo-eki; they were lucky that the shinkansen and maglev extension into Hokkaido had finished being extended into Hokkaido and up into Sapporo almost 6 months before the Tragedy. Amami and I stepped off, expecting Tsumugi to appear at any moment, or possibly to be blown up or to be shot at. But…

The station was deserted, other than a few rotting dead people and a group of somewhat excitable street mice, who were trying to climb up a potted plant for whatever reason.

Amami tutted aloud. “It’s not like her to be late… She might have got distracted again…” He muttered. I looked at him; he must not have slept too soundly, as he seemed a bit irritable. I wonder what he was stressed over…?

He took out a map of the city, covered in various scribbles and highlights. I stood behind him and put my head on his shoulder, looking somewhat bored and absentminded, before staring at the map myself. It looked like Tsumugi’s home, on a top floor setting inside the Sapporo Dome, was only about 10 minutes away.

I still couldn’t hear any shooting, nor could I see any plumes of smoke. Sure, there were corpses, but they were a bit old and manky.

We walked outside, following the map, but came across a few bicycles. “Yo, Amami, maybe we should get a bit of exercise?” I said in a coy manner; he smiled a little, and we grabbed them and rode.

As we cycled across the urban streets, I made particular note of the odd calm in the area. I even saw a few people, smiling to themselves, seeming to be well fed and in good humour, although some of them ran away when they saw my face. There were even a few children; two of them were chasing a bedraggled looking dog. Reminded me of some I used to know…

Amami seemed to be having around the same ideas as me. “What’s she done to this place, huh? It’s almost…nice.” He shouted over the wind in our hair. I held out an arm in a kind of shrugging position.

Finally, we found the stadium. The peace was somewhat broken by the sound of rats and crows eating dead bodies; and the swinging corpses hanging by metal hooks were a bit of a sight for sore eyes, since they kind of messed with the good vibes of the area. But, then again, this area was supposed to be under the territory of my Remnants, and a particularly unpleasant one at that. Hmph.

We stepped into the reception area, and I immiediately noticed the cool Monokuma graffiti all over one of the walls, with a carved up corpse lying underneath it. Now THAT was aesthetic, I thought to myself. In fact, the reception area of this place really was like a whole different world to the outside of the city; it stank of a mixture of human waste and old blood. Amami sniffed the air as if he was smelling a beautiful home made meal; comes with the state of his base back in Tokyo, I suppose.

“It’s, uh… the 5th floor, I think. It’s not on the actual map of the stadium, but I’m pretty sure she said she had made an extension to the building…” Amami spoke plainly as we paced towards the lift. I pressed the button.

Nothing happened. I pressed it again.

. . .

Nothing happened.

Suddenly, a roaring noise could be heard behind us; I turned around, and saw a rather large minigun (or, more accurately, a large automated defence turret with rotary machine gun cannon) pointed to us from above the main entrance, spinning it’s barrels but not opening fire. It had a camera and a small speaker pointed directly at us.

A synthesised voice spoke. “Identify”, it screeched metallically over the racket. Amami waved his hands frantically, apparently not wanting to die in such a dull manner (or, maybe he was just nervous around a machine that could fire 30mm rounds faster than you could blink, and feared for his life, but you know…); he shouted, “Rantaro Amami, with Junk—”

He was cut off by a non-synthesised shout of excitement over the speaker. The turret shutdown and entered back into it’s secret casing, and the lift doors slid open.

Amami, profusely sweating, wiped his forehead before stepping inside. I grinned a little bit. This was all so… neat.

The lift creaked and rattled as we ascended; standing in the awkward silence and not really knowing what to chat about with Amami, who was still shaking a little, I started to hum an old ditty from my childhood…

The lift stopped on the floor that wasn’t supposed to be there, and we got off. The corridor smelled truly vile, covered in foul stains and smelling something awful.

We, uh… didn’t know which door she lived in. So, we kind of waited a little while, with the awkward silence continuing to bug me. Finally, I got impatient, and stormed down the corridor, Amami begrudgingly stomping behind me. I heard a noise like mechanical whirring, and opened a door.

We found an average looking young woman with long hair and dark blue eyes sanding down what looked like a person… but wasn’t. I think. They weren’t screaming or bleeding, so…

Anyways. She looked calmly towards the swung open door, and leaped up, her eyes suddenly glowing warmly to herself. She leaped at us, somehow leaving all the stuff like work goggles and an apron on the ground, and launched on top of me.

“JUNKO-SAMA!!!” She cried, as if missing an old friend or lover. One arm swung around my neck and hugged me… while another was squeezing one of my still growing boobs. I felt my cheeks go a bit red, and I jumped backwards somewhat instinctively, but she wouldn’t let go.

She kept incessantly crying my name whilst still holding my breast and hugging me, and it took myself and Amami to pull her off; she sat down in a huff, her legs quivering in excitement and her glasses covered in condensation.

“Ha… ha… ah…” She slowly breathed in an erotic manner. I tutted. “So, you’re the one I’ve been hearing about, huh? You’re a bit plain and fake, yeah…?” I spoke flippantly, before turning to Amami. “Are you sure we’ve got the right girl? She doesn’t remind me of—” Tsumugi launched herself off the ground at me, holding a screwdriver in her hand and poised at my neck.

“—a mass murderer, she’s a little boring, y’know?” I continued, dodging and defending each mad swipe by the girl. My vision level is still 53,000 after all. Amami started laughing almost to himself. “Don’t suppose you need any help, do you?” He spoke, apparently to both of us. We both stopped, shook our heads, before carrying on.

Amami left us to our little fight for my boobs and/or neck, and walked over to the machine she was working on. It was apparently a robot, built by the Towa Group for their CEO’s (Tokuichi) personal usage as a butler and bodyguard. However, it wasn’t in good condition, but it looked like Tsumugi was trying to refurbish him; she’d hooked him up to a large laptop-type machine that seemed to be processing a large amount of information.

“Hey, shit for brains, don’t touch that!” Tsumugi cried aloud, stopping her fight with me and rushing over to make sure Amami hadn’t done anything. “After all, it would really mess up the progression of the story in later chapters! This isn’t mean difficulty, after all…” She muttered gibberish to herself under her breath, checking the information on the screen.

I could smell something. I walked out into the corridor, and opened one of the apartment doors, being careful to mind the different locks and/or booby traps. I walked into the messy but clean apartment, and opened a cupboard in one of the rooms.

I recognised all of the stuff in this little shrine thing instantly. A piece of Hagakure’s hair, one of Genocider’s scissors… even one of my old bras! It hadn’t been washed; no wonder I knew the familiar smell of my sweet, sweet sweat.

Tsumugi sprinted into the room like a bat out of hell, slammed the bra back into the cupboard, shut the doors closed and slapped me across the chin, lifting me into the air and landing on the futon. She jumped on top of me and started rabbit kissing my neck in an almost adorable manner, if it weren’t so unwarranted. “Junko…” She breathed down my neck.

Amami ran into the room about three seconds late, shouting “I couldn’t stop her!” before seeing the sight of us on the ground; his face fell, and he slowly started closing the door. “It’s not what you think!” I screeched, my hair standing on end.

In the end, we sat around a small table in a nearby room; Tsumugi stated that she didn’t often have visitors, so she melted down the corpses of a nearby apartment and set out some furniture. She made some wonderful smelling tea, and we sat around.

The girl was staring into my eyes, absolutely thrilled and almost squealing in excitement under her breath. “I want to marry you and have your babies and be stepped on under your beautiful feet.” She stated flatly. I thought to myself, that’s not how things work… but thought against it. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Shirogane-san, so I have somewhat high despairs for you. Let’s talk business, yeah?” I spoke calmly in response.

Her eyes immediately fell dark and flat. She sat up straight and rested her hands on her lap. “Yes, your Highness! I’m assuming you want to take the reigns of my soldiers then? That’s what you’re here for, right? To bring the fight back to Hope? I mean, you came back from the fucking dead to do all of this, so I’m thinking you’ve got something in mind…?” She queried in a sullen, plain spoken manner. I thought to myself… what did I actually want from this girl? Did I want soldiers? Weapons? An army? Did I need a plan? Did I want a new servant or sister like my despairingly-departed, or did I want an ally, like the old Izuru? Did I, deep in my blackened, cruel heart, want someone like me on my side? “I… don’t really know. Haven’t decided; I’m sooo changeable, you know?” I explained frankly. Amami looked at me in almost surprise, as if to say ‘Yo, I took you all the way to the other side of the country, and THIS is all you want to say?’.

Tsumugi stood up, and walked to the door. Myself and Amami swigged down our drinks, and rushed up. We followed Tsumugi, to the opposite end of the corridor to the lift, and then she turned around.

“You know how I live in a stadium? And how all the people of this place seem to be really calm and friendly?” She smiled, and placed her hand on the wall behind her.

A whirring mechanism clunked around us, and suddenly the walls came apart (since we were slightly ahead of any of the apartments), folding into a box or viewing platform type of thing, overlooking the grandiose Sapporo Dome innards.

Our reactions varied; I stared at the level of beautiful ultraviolence – the hung corpses with their guts hanging out, the effigies of the various Ultimates of Hope’s Peak Academy covered in blood and burnt slightly, the cheering from an audience at the apparent horrors whilst simultaneously fighting one another in a brusque manner, and the stadium floor covered with viscera and the sounds of screaming. Tsumugi simply looked triumphantly at us, as if revealing an ace in the hole.

And Rantaro was shouting in anger and in horror, staring squarely at a child sat in tight wires on a wooden chair with a large bomb strapped to her chest, surrounded by all of the violence.


	17. Chapter 17 - Tachiagaru Kakugo no Chikara (Junko Enoshima, Tsumugi Shirogane, Amami Family Reunion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amami gets annoyed. Tsumugi and Junko get off to a rough start.

“See, I actually have a little test for you, Junko. I want to see your reactions, your ideas, your thoughts… and mainly, I want to make sure you’re not a robot programmed by my enemies to ruin my life and assassinate me...” Tsumugi shouted over the chaos, her hands placed on her hips dramatically.

Rantaro didn’t say anything; his scream was just that of pure fury. He sprinted over to Tsumugi and grabbed hold of her, shaking her. “What the actual fuck, Tsum? We were… we were… I mean, you even played with her… we were… FUCK YOU!” He spluttered, his words turning into spittle as he spat everywhere with his impassioned rage. Tsumugi’s eyes were blank; she looked like she didn’t even notice he was there.

I paced forward a little, examining the area in more detail. There was already a lot… off about the details. But I had to confirm some stuff first. I examined the supposed “arena” grounds; it looked like a wooden maze, with the occasional skeleton and landmine. There were 10 doors surrounding it, each leading to a cage with an angry looking person, almost feral, inside. There was also a single masked figure holding some sort of gun standing next to the bomb-girl (that is, presumably Amami’s youngest sister).

Tsumugi brushed Rantaro off herself in a swift motion, and he collapsed in symbolic defeat on the ground. “Lemme give you the quick run-down.  Basically, those ten people are gonna murder the girl in the middle in a ten-minute time slot. The person in the middle will kill anyone who tries to get to the girl; if they succeed, the bomb is defused. If either the person in the middle or the girl dies, or the time limit of 10 minutes goes off, the bomb explodes, releasing nearly a kiloton of energy as well as a rather potent bioweapon. Any questions, my queen?” She explained briefly, in almost a bored manner, like a gameshow host late at night.

“I refuse. Lol.” I stated. Tsumugi grinned. “Neat! Guess that was easy. Well, let’s watch the game for ten minutes, I suppose.” She suggested, holding a finger to her chin as if in thought.

Rantaro started screaming and wailing again. I guess he was really out of his comfort zone; so much for an Ultimate Adventurer; ironic, really.

But the sound was familiar, and it was music to my ears. I grabbed him by the shoulders. “What is it that you’re feeling, Amami? Is it… despair?” I grinned callously, my nose nearly touching his in my excitement.

“Is it not the most wonderful feeling? Is this not how you used to feel? If you let your sister die this horrific death, you’ll enter a most wonderful, terrible state… It’ll be sweet, I swear… Feeling the death of a family member is such good fuel to the fires of—” I was monologuing, when Rantaro whispered something:

“anger.”

“What?” I asked curiously. He threw his arms up, shoving me aside. Tsumugi was watching intently, her eyes alit like diamonds in the sky. “I’M FUCKING PISSED, YOU COMPLETE FUCK-UPS.” He shouted aloud; it wasn’t even seemingly to us. “I’m not fucking despairing; I just want to fucking throw both of you down there to die instead of her. You’re all nuts! Why… how do you even LIKE feeling like this? This isn’t despair; this is just misery. Fuck you…” He slouched against the platform wall, defeated.

I watched him. Then…

“Pathetic. Boring.” Tsumugi spoke almost to herself, referring to her former comrade with utter distaste.

Ah, fuck it.

“Talking about yourself and to yourself, are we?” I quipped frankly, turning to the girl. “You know what? You annoy the hell out of me, and I love it. But you know what might bring YOU some despair? Fucking up this little game of yours, yeah?” I lied through my teeth.

Like I said, something was very wrong here.

I pulled a small knife out of my panties. “Yo, Amami, I’m gonna be right back, alright? Stop being a wuss for a moment and keep an eye on her, would you?” I sarcastically explained, before jumping off the balcony and landing many feet down into the arena. Tsumugi poked her head out of the side of the platform, and shouted “Seven minutes now!”.

I sprinted. I wanted to end this little thing as soon as possible. One bloke ran almost straight through me, and I sliced straight through him, covering the sand and the wooden walls in blood.

This same sort of rhythm kept going; I counted down – one body sliced up, two body carved up, three and four body cut together and shoved up the arse of five body, etcetera. I threw a knife at person number 10, picked it out of their forehead, before jumping on top of the maze walls and hopped around until I found the middle.

The masked individual turned to me and fired, saying something along the lines of “Why are you here?” before I cut their head clean off. I did wonder to myself – why was I here? To fuck up Tsumugi’s plans? To clean up a bit of boredom? To be nice to Amami so I could reap the rewards of my service later? … was it even a common ground of losing a sibling? Who knows…? I didn’t really care at the time.

I went to defuse the bomb, and it exploded, vaporising everything in the vicinity and showering the dome with lead and smoke…

Tsumugi clicked a button, and everything vanished. She closed her eyes and was about to begin a big ol’ spiel about reality being what you want it to be or something, until she stopped.

And saw me drawing a large dick in the sand with my knife, casually sprawled with my legs out.

She tutted. “How long did you know, then?” She shouted, quite a few feet away from me, obviously.

It was easy. A remnant of despair wouldn’t do such a crap job of imitating one of my killing games; that was the first straw. The second straw was the layout; too simplistic, and too fake compared to the surroundings – such as the hanging corpses; and on the subject of fake, the third straw that broke the camel’s back was the great ease it took to kill the opponents. I just lazily swung the knife; cutting into people takes a bit more “Oomph”, you know? Like cutting a chewy bit of steak.

I didn’t say any of that, obviously – I was too busy artistically drawing hair onto the bollocks underneath my artisanal penis.

As I was walking up the dome’s stairs to get back to the top, Tsumugi walked over to the pitiful Rantaro, who was still in a panicked state. “Hey, Rantaroid. Your family’s on the floor below, in the restaurant. I saved them all right after the Tragedy; I didn’t want you to get hurt, y’know? I owe you that much, I suppose.” She spoke placidly, but with a bittersweet tone. “Get out of the gutter and get a grip, dude. Shouldn’t you be used to this world by now…? Oh, whatever. Stop crying, anyway, you’ll upset your… twelve… (Do your parents breed like catholic rabbits?!) … sisters. Come along now, eh? Be a good person, even if we’re not friends anymore. Friendly rivalry maybe, yeah?”

They finished their little fireside chat. I finally got up the stairs – Is it just me, or are large venue stairs always too steep? – and waved to the two of them.

“Well, I suppose some explanations are in order, yes?” Tsumugi smiled. “I suggest that we go for a bite to eat at the DanganCafé, themed after my stuff… but I’ll explain that in the next chapter.” She explained; Rantaro shook his head, always confused by his old friend’s quirks; and we started heading down to the restaurant.


	18. Chapter 18 – DANGANRONPA (Junko Enoshima, Tsumugi Shirogane, Amami Family Reunion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko has a revelation. Amami is happy.

I sipped down the sweet fizzy drink from the me-shaped flask. “Isn’t this a little… gaudy?” I queried. Tsumugi laughed; “We live in an essentially post-apocalyptic world; I don’t have the resources to be particular.”

Amami came over with a bag of chocolate balls shaped like little Monokuma heads, with his youngest sister – the one that had just been blown to bits – sitting grinning on his shoulder. She swung round his neck, and he smiled cheerfully to her; she grabbed a handful of chocolate, and jumped off him (with him shouting “You little monkey!” at her and proceeding to gleefully chase her around the large room) before racing back to the long table with the Amami family on. They looked like an average family, if more affluent and a lot larger than most nuclear families.

“Hey, plain Jane, why can’t we get some killing game entertainment while we're eating?” I asked casually. Shirogane snorted out a bit of her drink, and responded: “I don’t put them on during the weekends; allows the people some family and breaktime.” I nodded, kind of agreeing with her logic.

A man came over and served us some crappy looking fast food (“McRonpa Queen” brand…) that we’d ordered. I was startled when I recognised the face, and he looked just as surprised – so surprised that he did a rather big screech and jumped backwards. I stood up, pulling out one of my knives (I appeared to be collecting them at this point).

“Hey, Shirogane, you realise that you have a hopeful traitor in your employ, right…?” I stared into the eyes of Yasuhiro Hagakure, narrowing my sharp gaze and thinking about which spot would be most fitting to gouge out. Tsumugi sipped her drink calmly, before putting it down. “Boss, can you try not to murder my awesome new manservant?” She smiled cheekily; Yasuhiro blinked a bunch of times, before hopping up and down angrily. “Hey!! I ain’t your servant man! I’m just following your orders, so you don’t kill me or cut off anymore of my awesome hair!!”

I gave a hearty laugh, before sitting back down again; Tsumugi waved him away, and he waltzed off in a grumble; we got back to business after that little disturbance.

“So. Questions and answers.” She placed her hands on the table, as if mimicking a card deck. “What are you actually doing with this city?” I asked. “Basically, it’s a big old social experiment; you know, like the shitty prank ones on the Internet, but on a way bigger scale and far more important.” She described.

“When you put on your killing game, the world stopped moving. The live feed of romance, death, comedy, hope and despair emotionally hooked the people around the world. Even some people from the Future Foundation and from the Remnants would gather together during the duration to place bets and have (violent) debates about who would die next and such.” She paused to take another sip, before holding her head in apparent agony.

“Sorry… brainfreeze. Argh.” She giggled a little, before carrying on.

“I speculated an idea to some of my allies called ‘Hope through Despair’. You know that old kind of crappy horror film where crime is legal once a year? It’s like that, but more realistic. If you have something so gripping and so eventful in the public mind, they will be so focused on it that they drop their conflicts and actually sit down for once. You’d end up with people not fighting over their stupid nationalities or their different weapons, but over their favourite characters and who will win this epic game show, where the stakes keep getting higher.”

“And so, you tested it out on this town, right?” I enquired; she nodded. “Yep – it’s like a big old testing facility. Somewhat diverse population but not too big, a large enough venue but not too big to be noticed and bombed to shit; etcetera. It didn’t work too well at the start; for example, spreading it out over a long period of time as you did was a little temperamental in the current atmosphere, and since I didn’t want to decrease the population too much, I ended up setting up some ground rules. For example, I don’t have a game on the weekends; I only have ten (sometimes 12) participants, who are told to kill someone in secret within the next 24 hours and have a class trial, but if they find the person they all escape immediately, and if they say the wrong person then they’re all executed except for the blackened. I do them five days a week, with each ending up lasting between 12 and 20 hours, meaning script writing is sometimes a bit hard and sometimes the décor is a bit bland…” She breathed in dramatically; she’d been chatting for a while.

“But… it’s actually worked, to an extent. I call the whole thing “DanganRonpa”; it’s a portmanteau of “dangan” (bullet) and “ronpa” (refutation or argument), and I kind of stole it from that cool looking expression that Makoto did against you with the finger pointing like he was firing a bullet to stop your arguments. But yeah; it’s been almost a miracle here. I’m sure you saw kids around, seeming safe and sound, right? Heck, there’s even a market in town now. People seem… happy. Safe. And yet, every week day, I round them up, pick out participants in a lottery, and force them to experience despair. It’s a sick mercy to be sure, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t bring me a bittersweet despair…” She smiled again, taking a sip, before looking in the direction of the Amami family (one of the sisters had poured ketchup onto Rantaro’s back, and they were chasing each other while the older ones chuckled) and grimacing.

“What about you, then? Personally?” I spoke the thorny question. She smiled again, her face blank as usual. “I’m a distant remnant of your true despair, I suppose. From the reports of your school days, I have a little bit in common – namely, the skill of super analytical prowess and the double-edged effect it has in terms of intel gathering and the despair it brings. I didn’t have as rough an upbringing as you though, and I’d also be the first to admit that I’m not quite as stable as you… maybe.” She stopped, and looked out the window.

“When did you want to discuss the Plan, then? I can guess some of what you might want, and add some of my own ideas…” I tilted my head in response. “Hey, Amamis, could ya give us the room? Except Rantaro, duh…” I shouted. They bowed their heads towards me, and left in a hurry. Rantaro pulled up a seat, and I asked him to pull out the maps and some paper.

It took a while. I ain’t gonna spoil the great Plan for y’all – you should totally just wait for it, and it’d be boring to explain it all without actually doing shit. Though, while I’m waiting, I could take the time to explain some other titbits…

For example: Tsumugi, who technically controls a large portion of the world, got most of her equipment and military stuff from the North Korean regime, who in exchange didn’t interfere and bring despair there. She was also involved in the Battle of Moscow (y’know, the one mentioned earlier with the Big Bang Monokuma), at which point she gained a large sum of intelligence from the Kremlin, among other things, as well as lots of additional military stuff.

We finished by renaming our Remnants to the friendlier sounding “Team Danganronpa”; although, our political wing will probably be known as the Danganronpa Party, or maybe DanganParty, or maybe PartyRonpa. I haven’t decided, fufufufu.

I finished my drink, and sat back into my cheap metal seat, staring at a broken ceiling fan swinging from side to side. This type of almost friendly discussion really brought me back to the good ole days… The days when Mukuro, myself and Yasuke Matsuda sat around the dinner table, thanking God for dinner, and smiling to one another, even whilst I was falling deeper into my abyss of despair, rejecting all hope and all of God and the afterlife. I never did see Mukuro or Matsuda in the Afterwards. The only person I physically saw in the cinema was that cow, Chisa, even if I did feel as though many people walked to the doors behind me.

The fan kept swinging, like a circular pendulum, acting as a metaphor for the cycle of existence, going around and round, swinging between hope and despair, truth and lies, good and evil… The universe revolved, the world burned, and here I was, sipping drinks out of a shoddy plastic container shaped in my visage.

The world was in my grasp once more; not once, but twice now the world had become a dog with which I held the lead. As the old passage from the Bhagavad Gita that Oppenheimer once quoted goes, ‘Now, I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds’.

Puhuhuhu…. Puhuhuhuhu…

“PUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHU…”

Then I noticed the other two staring at me, a thoroughly bemused look in their eyes. “What? Oh, I was laughing aloud, huh. Neat”, I nattered to their blank faces in a defiant manner.

Tsumugi cleared her throat. “With all this out of the way, I think we now have two things we need to do before we can begin the main course of events. Which do you think we should do first, Boss?”

“Hmmm…” I replied, my fingers on my chin feigning thought.

“I think we should reach to the stars…”


	19. Chapter 19 – Cold (Makoto Naegi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makoto dreams once more.
> 
> NB: Written about a third of the entire work now, but only published about a tenth of it... Ha! As always, any comments, kudos, and bookmarks completely appreciated. Thanks as always for reading.

Makoto watched the operation come to its end on Togami; it had taken around 2 days, but he seemed to be stabilising. Happy that it was successful, he rested his head onto the chair he sat on, and fell asleep from exhausted worry.

The void opened up for him once again, the cool and calm blue-sky reflection of the ground clashing with the dark red and orange sunset sky. He was once again sat face to face with the supposed copy of myself, Junko Enoshima.

The girl had her legs crossed, and, wearing small spectacles, she was reading a simple black copy of Plato’s Republic. She lifted her head, noticing I was here, and shut the book.

“Hiya! You’re back! Gosh, you really need to get some more rest, huh?” She smiled in quite a warm manner. Naegi opened his mouth, and found that this time he had a voice.

“Who are you? Why are you in my head?” He shouted, visibly angry. He tried to stand up, but found he was simply attached to his chair.

Junko smiled again, uncrossing her legs and leaving her hands in her lap. “Who am I? Why am I in your head? Hm…” She tilted her head. “Isn’t it obvious who I am? After all, didn’t you discover who I was a while back…?”

Makoto squinted his eyes at her, concentrating. He looked at her face and had a sudden realisation.

“…Mukuro?” He stated flatly.

“Bingo! Yahtzee! Congrats, that’s the $100 million prize! Yah-hoo!” She punched the air in excitement, grinning from ear to ear. Makoto fell silent. “That’s impossible… you’re dead.” Mukuro tilted her head to the side again. “Didn’t my little sister already disprove that whole thing? She came back from the dead; why not me, yours truly?” She frowned.

He sighed. “Anyways, even if you ARE Mukuro Ikusaba… she wasn’t like this, according to my old memories… And anyway, why would you be in my dreams? And how did you end those tiresome despair nightmares I kept having?” He grumbled.

She frowned, and grimaced again. Then, she stood up, and snapped her own neck, collapsing to the floor. Makoto screamed instinctively, horrified, until he looked at the seat again, and found Makoto Naegi staring straight at him.

“Yo!” The reflection said. Makoto’s eyes went wide in complete bewilderment; he looked at the floor again, and noticed the body wasn’t there anymore; and then he looked back at the reflection, and saw Jin Kirigiri, the old headmaster of Hope’s Peak Academy gazing down on him. The tall man in the black suit wore a menacing face, as if looking straight through Makoto.

“Hey… what the fuck?” Naegi said simply, looking away to his feet. “What… is this? Why?” He slammed his fists into his thighs.

The reflection tutted. “Don’t despair, little man. Are you not the embodiment of all hope, of humanity’s future? Look not to the past, to your failings, but to what lies ahead. If you let go of your worry, of your hopes and your nightmares, and instead progress without fail, then you will survive and win this cruel game that is life…” He smiled a wicked smile, staring down upon Naegi.

“Isn’t that what luck really is, after all? The power to survive, and to be extraordinary? Is it not luck that ensures we don’t get hit by cars every day, or trip over our feet and get flattened by a train? Hm. I do not know.” He grinned. Naegi looked up again, and this time the reflection wore his wife’s body.

“Survive, Makoto Naegi, even if you must lose everything. He who wishes for peace must prepare for war. Goodbye for now, Makoto.” She smiled, and waved her hand before disappearing along with the rest of the dream world, leaving Naegi to fall into the abyss, the last word – his name – calling out to him repeatedly…

“Makoto! MAKOTO!” The voice cried.

Naegi opened his eyes, staring into the eyes of his lover. He was sweating buckets, and he noticed how pale his skin had gone.

“. . .” He coughed a little, resting his head in Kyoko’s lap. She smiled, putting her hand through his flat head of hair; “Don’t worry me like that. I thought something was wrong for a moment.”

He sighed, staring into her eyes.

“I love you, Kyoko. You mean the world to me.” He smiled, putting his hand on her cheek; her face was warm, and her cheek went rosy at the touch.

“I love you too… You know I’d follow you into the depths of hell.”


	20. Chapter 20 – Ground Control to Major Towa (Monaca Towa)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain space NEET gets a call.

Roughly 2,000km above Australia, a small van-like object was in a state of Low Earth Orbit. Inside, a small girl floated around, sound asleep. Her pickle green hair floated all around, and it was obvious that she hadn’t cut it in a while. Packets of food floated around, and the TV had been left on.

Monaca Towa had decided to stop thinking a while ago. Monaca was bored with the world, and bored of existing, so Monaca decided it was best if she went to sleep for a while. All of her plans were either boring or had failed, and her one life inspiration was long dead.

And so, the van and the little girl drifted along the edge of the atmosphere, fading out of existence…

The TV crackled to life. On it, a larger-than-life face was seen, with a big old grin. “Yo! Monaca-chan!” It cried.

Monaca didn’t awaken. She was dreaming of having a picnic with the corpse of her mum.

“Monaca? Hewwo? Hewwwwooo?” The TV spoke again, with an increasingly bored tone.

The face moved back a little, with a finger tapping the screen. “Is this thing on?” It stated pointedly, in a confused tone. A voice nearby explained that it was indeed on, and the connection to the other side was on.

“Eh… guess she’s just being lazy…” The TV girl pouted, tutting and clicking her tongue in irritation. Then, the TV smiled again, and started singing in a somewhat broken voice. “Ground Control to Major Towa… Ground Control to Major Towa… take your despair pills and put your Monokuma on…~” Junko sung in a broken English accent.

Monaca’s eyes, a glowing yellow-green with a broken manji pattern on her iris, flew wide open. She groaned, yawned, and stretched her arms out, before patting her disabled legs absentmindedly. “Ugh…” She groaned.

“WAKEY WAKEY, SLEEPYHEAD…” I shouted at the screen. I was standing with Tsumugi and Rantaro on the roof of the Sapporo Dome, attached with an antenna and a laptop. Monaca’s eyes squinted around the little room in a tired manner. “I’m hearing things again…” She yawned, bemused. “Yes. You’re hearing things… I am your subconscious… and your subconscious is telling you TO FUCKING TURN AROUND, YOU LITTLE IDIOT.” I screamed at the screen. Rantaro sighed. “Yo, boss, isn’t she like a primary school kid…? Calm down a little, yeah?”

I tutted again. “Shuddup, shit for brains. I’m Junko fucking Enoshima, I do as I please…”

At hearing the name, Monaca’s eyes lit up further. “Junko… Enoshima…? Big sis Junko…? Wait… no… she’s mince meat…” She sighed, bored, and swung round to the screen. “Illusionary Big Sis Junko, you’re not real… leave me alone to sleep…” Monaca shoved her head into a Monokuma shaped pillow, and even did a little growl, her legs twisting a little without pain. They had been totally crushed beyond repair, but she was glad she was in space, as it meant she could just move by swimming, essentially.

I sighed a little. “Yo, little one… You remember the thing you promised to me, on that roof oh so long ago, right…?” Monaca squinted in response. “You said you would give me your life… and that you would stop running away, and fight for me… Did you really mean it? Or was it just a despairingly-boring lie?” I smiled, in an almost kind manner.

Monaca smiled back. “Wow… Monaca didn’t believe in miracles, but here is one staring me in the face… Hi, hi, Junko-sama…” She grinned a little, squeezing the Monokuma plush tightly, almost looking as though she was gonna cry. “Hey-hey, don’t gimme those fake waterworks now, eh? This is no time for emotions…” I grinned a bit, smiling a sickly-sweet smile.

“So, you’re back from the depths of hell… but Monaca-chan is wondering, why? Why is big sis Junko back? And why is she calling little Monaca?” The little girl rolled around, swinging upside down, her hair wrapping slowly round one of the little game controllers.

My grin broadened; my plan was going swimmingly. “Well… I heard from a little bird that you’d taken a certain van into orbit when you gave up… was that van the one I gave you the designs for, along with the basic designs for the Monokuma units and such…?” I spoke calmly. Monaca pouted. “Hmmm… Monaca doesn’t know… Maybe? Maybe not?” She shrugged a little shrug. I sighed.

“Well, let’s assume it is. Tell me, if you go into the driver’s seat… wait, you know how to get in there, right? Just pull the side of the right bookshelf next to the TV…” I explained carefully. Monaca murmured something, before floating off screen and pulling said bookcase; it swung open surprisingly easily, and Monaca found herself gazing into the dashboard window, with a spectacular view of Earth.

Well, what was left of it. I’ll show y’all it in a bit, yeah?

“O-Kay! Monaca is here! Now what?” The little voice came over the TV. I grinned. “Alright; since this must be the Van I designed, there should be a small panel underneath the driver’s seat; if you pull it open and press the big blue button I left there, you can be a real big help to your dear sis!” I smiled to myself, speaking aloud.

We heard a grating of metal and the sound of something being printed off; it was obviously successful.

“Woah… Junko-sama… You really gave Monaca a cool little task…” The girl floated back into view. “This is gonna be sweet! It might take a while before I can get it all set up, but if I follow your instructions, Monaca should be able to do it very very quickly!” The little girl gave me a salute; I waved back, and the connection shut down.

Tsumugi lifted her head up; she’d been sitting down on the ground for a bit, tired of standing around and seeing Rantaro’s face. “Do you think she’ll do it?” Tsumugi stated in a grumbling manner. I smiled. “She’s one of the most interesting, most despair-inducing, and most awesome people I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting… She’ll be amazing.”

Rantaro stood up, and Tsumugi followed him. “Onto Task 2 then, I guess.” I said with a dramatic tone. Tsumugi nodded. We started walking away, and I was secretly praying to myself that Monaca would be successful in her task; it was an important one for someone of her age.


	21. Chapter 21 – The Waiting Game (Hajime Hinata, Makoto Naegi, Kyosuke Munakata)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Future Foundation waits for someone.

Munakata stood on the side of the steep mountain in Hokkaido, observing the landscape whilst the wind blew through his platinum hair and his katana jammed into the ground.

Hajime Hinata, with his heterochromatic eyes, stared at him with doubt in his eyes. “Hey… is there really any need to be so bloody dramatic?” He complained loudly, struggling to speak over the sound of the howling wind. Munakata gave an uncharacteristic laugh, before nodding. Hinata shook his head and chuckled.

Makoto Naegi sprinted up behind them, out of breath. “How’s it all going? Why are we all out here doing nothing? Can’t we do nothing indoors, where it’s just a bit warmer…?” He shouted, trying to drown out the wind. Munakata sighed, before pulling his sword out of the ground and sliding it into its sheath. “Take the fun out of everything, don’t you…”.

They walked indoors, through the maintenance area and upstairs into the calming spa area. Some other people – patients, as well as some Future Foundation members relaxing – were around, but took no notice of the group as they paced through into a lounge area.

The three of them sat down in a heap. “Got nothing better to do while we wait for Togami to wake up, I guess…” Hajime spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb the mood; “Any of you guys wanna play some—” He was interrupted by Naegi tutting.

“Hajime, you’re a great bloke and all, but we all know that you still have Izuru’s powers and shit. We can’t really play anything competitive around you, because you always beat everyone since your talents practically make you, you know, a… God?” Naegi grumbled. Hajime opened his mouth, but didn’t say a word, frowning and his face drooping.

Munakata, suddenly realising that the mood had become a bit moody, brightened up a bit. “Hey, maybe we could, like, bet on something? We could play some rock paper scissors, or do a coin toss… wait. He’s got Ultimate Good Luck, hasn’t he…” He stopped, before frowning and having a droopy face as well.

“Way to ruin the mood, Makoto.” Naegi said to himself.

“Well, don’t you plebs look like a sorry bunch?” A stoic voice said from a distance.

The group turned around, to see Togami’s ever-grumpy face gazing down on them. They grinned, and he turned his nose up at them.


	22. Chapter 22 - The Miscellaneous Events of the Life of Nagito Komaeda, Part 2 (Nagito Komaeda)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Komaeda makes some food.
> 
> (NB: How do I have over 600 views/hits but only 3 bookmarks and only 2 comments? I'm always so bemused by this website/community, and I live on Tumblr! Ah, I'm not complaining. I just find it interesting. Hope y'all continue to enjoy!)

Komaeda stared at the children sitting across from him.

The former Warriors of Hope stared back.

“Huh… this is awkward.” Masuru Daimon spoke aloud, in an obscene tone. Nagisa Shingetsu elbowed him. “Don’t be rude. It’s nice enough that the Serv—I mean, Nagito wanted to meet with us; we might as well give him the time of day.”

Kotoko Utsugi grimaced and stared at the white-haired young man. “This guy doesn’t even deserve the time of day, or even the time of night! He’s totally annoying and he stinks.”

Nagito stared at Jataro Kemuri. “Yo, you’re actually totally adorable without your weird leather mask on.” Jataro’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hey!! Now you’re being the one who’s rude!” Masuru pointed a finger at their former Servant.

Komaeda sighed; all he wanted to do was apologise to the kids for manipulating them and stuff; he’d been wanting to do it for over a year or so now, but hadn’t got the guts to do it until now.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Hey! I know! How about I try to make you guys something to eat again?” He spoke wildly. The children frowned. “What, after the last time?” Nagisa said what the room was thinking, and they all nodded. “Now, now; think of it less of something manky to eat, and instead as a nice bonding exercise, you know?” Komaeda spluttered, hoping that he hadn’t dug his own grave too deep yet.

Somehow, they ended up in the facility’s kitchen area. The kids dumped the ingredients on a table, and watched him try to make some stuff.

. . .

Well, he made some stuff. Shame it was totally gross! He even tried to microwave it, that idiot.

They gave up; but he then remembered that he could do a totally cool ice cream recipe, remembering what someone told him ages ago… a sweet manufacturer, or someone. They knew what they were talking about.

And so, they tried again; and this time, it worked! Komaeda accidentally put too much sugar and cream in, making it sickly sweet, but the kids loved it, so they were fine with it – it’s not like their parents were gonna complain…

Too soon? Ah, whatever. Foul jokes aside, they actually did quite well.


	23. Chapter 23 – Complications (Junko Enoshima, Tsumugi Shirogane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko talks plainly with the plain Jane.

I stood naked next to Tsumugi Shirogane in one of her stinky apartments; my breasts were sat neatly on top of hers, the pleasant flesh sticking together with sweat; my lips were wet, and I felt tense.

She was grinning ear to ear.

How… did it come to this? I’m confused.

She kissed me, and knelt down and started rabbit kissing my chest. My boobs bounced as they laid on top of her head.

Suddenly, there was a knife in my gut; a serrated edge, with the Hope’s Peak Academy logo emblazoned on it. I recognised it in an instant, and saw my (fully dressed) sister smiling at me, crying.

I woke with a start, sweating. I rubbed my eyes, and noticed a rare tear in one of them. Shit.

I sat up, and looked out the window. I remembered where I was; we were back on the heavily armoured Shinkansen, making our way to central Tokyo for a meeting with one of Tsumugi’s backers. I had fallen asleep in one of the seats of the Gran-class car, my hair turning a darkened strawberry blonde since I hadn’t dyed it in a while.

I got up, and went into the next car, where I found Tsumugi sitting at a table; she was trying on a bunch of different masks. “What’s up with this?” I asked, yawning a little bit. Tsumugi turned around. “Well, I don’t really want people to see me that much; like, people KNOW of me as a leader of Despair, but they don’t know my name or face, and I’d rather stay that way, as a good old-fashioned back-stage administrator. They know me, but they don’t _know_ me, y’know? So, I was thinking about what I could do to cover my plain face…”

I laughed. “I mean, surely it’s a no-brainer? Like, ya gotta go with either the classic Monokuma, or you can go with the Mono-Wrestling mask I used to beat up Naegi that one time.” Tsumugi shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I can’t have that… I cannot even compare to you so as to wear something that you wore… Hmph.”

I sighed, and plonked myself down next to her, and rest my head in her lap. She squealed a little bit, going bright red. “Eh?! Wh-what are you doing, my queen?!”

I giggled, covering my mouth in a cheeky manner. “What does it look like I’m doing, silly? I’m flirting~” I said sweetly, blowing a kiss. She started breathing heavily. “Junko-sama…”

I got up and sat opposite her, my face blank. “Well, that was more boring than I thought it would be. I was sure for a second there you were gonna faint, or maybe even fucking orgasm from my very presence. How dull…” I grinned mischievously, before sitting up straight.

“Tell me, Tsum-Tsum, what do you actually want from me? Like, what do you want to be, to me?” I said quietly, in a deadly serious tone that was rarely heard. Tsumugi straightened up as well, cupping her head in her hand and looking thoughtful. “Well… It would be nice to just be your secretary, I suppose. I look plain, don’t distract from your awe-inspiring despair, and I actually work hard and I’m sort of on the same level as you despair-wise, just in a different way.”

“Huh. One moment your saying you wouldn’t dare compare to me, the next yer saying I’m on the same level as me? Huh??” I groaned, slamming my head onto the table and squishing my face down. “Well… you see… I am like you, but not like you… I am despair, but I don’t really despair, I guess… I guess I’m just very changeable…” She responded, a dark empty look in her eyes.

I sat up again. Despair, but not despair…

“Shirogane-san, what do YOU want?” I questioned plainly.

She shuffled a little bit, sort of uncomfortable looking. “What do… I want? Well… If you’re gonna be so plain about the question, I suppose I can be plain in my answer…” She looked up at the ceiling of the train, into the artificial light.

“I suppose… like you said once… I hope to despair. Hope through despair, despair through hope… I want the world to become ordered, united, through despair. To want is to hope, and what I want is despair… If the world could become totally peaceful and ordered; to be happy, like one big world family, like I once used to have but lost… and yet somehow full of despair, that amount of contradiction would give me my ultimate despairful hope and hopeful despair… Does that make… sense?” She stuttered, oddly nervous for someone who so rarely experienced emotion.

I looked at her. As always, her face was blank, despite being nervous, and her eyes were devoid of anything except a blank, dark blue look of utter despair. She was a true enigma.

“You know… I’ve actually had a vacancy in the Ultimate Despair Sisters department, you know, since the death of my useless sister… you could take that up, if you… uhm… wanted?” I said in a low tone.

Tsumugi’s eyes lit up again, with a previously unseen fire. She did a squeal like an excited child, and reached across the table and hugged me. “Thank you, Junko-sama!! I won’t let you down!!” She spoke loudly. I shushed her, despite the fact that the train was basically empty except for the staff down the hall and Rantaro (who I think had gone to the loo at some point? Maybe the fast food didn’t go down well with him…).

Naturally, both of us sat on a throne of lies, each with their own wants and needs. But that is the nature of despair; like an assassin falling in love with their target, preparing to kill their lover at any moment for the sake of emotional madness.

Hope. Despair. Truth. Lies. Good. Evil.

All of these ethical ideas, these names of properties, are all one and the same, faces of an infinite dice thrown at a table by a cold, humourless entity that idiots would call “God”.

I looked back at Tsumugi, who had laid her head between her hands and was blissfully staring at me, and grinned. And so, the train continued to move without stopping towards the future… oh, and Tokyo Station, at which point we would take a connecting route to Saitama. I think we’re meeting some people at either the Hotel Metropolitan Saitama Shintoshin Central or the NTT Docomo Saitama Building… Can’t remember. Ha!


	24. Chapter 24 – Cruel Arm of Fate (Future Foundation)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting is held.

Makoto sat with the other leaders of the Future Foundation in a solemn silence, as the large plane they were on began its descent to Narita International Airport. The original airport had been hit by a homemade thermobaric bomb shortly after the beginning of the Tragedy, and as a result had been widely decimated. The Future Foundation had eventually taken the ruins of it, and redeveloped it under Munakata’s careful consideration into a massive, sprawling military complex, and the Future Foundation’s central HQ for Honshu.

Oh, for Westerners, Honshu is the Japanese name for the main island of Japan. Y’know, the big long one that looks kinda like a fish if you turn it on its side. For comparison, the actual headquarters of the Future Foundation, the new Hope’s Peak Academy, is on Asahi-dake, a mountain on the island of Hokkaido, the northern big island of Japan (and the hospital Togami had been in was on a mountain north of that). Meanwhile, myself and the gang were on the Shinkansen, which was currently around 5 miles south of Sendai.

Clear? Good. Git gud, geography scrub. Or, in Monaca Towa’s own words, “Google it up, shitlord!”.

Makoto cleared his throat, and the members turned to him. Byakuya sighed a little.

“Now that Togami-san has recovered, and now has a (really cool looking!) robotic arm, we can now discuss the business that is at hand; which is to say, Junko Enoshima. The most dangerous woman in the world has been let loose on Earth once more, even at the eve of hope’s victory.” He lifted his head up. “We cannot let my former classmate roam the world as she sees fit. Our main objective, putting the Nishina Operation and the Neo World programme aside, is now to find Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Despair and leader of the Remnants of Despair, and bring her to HQ – dead or alive.”

There was some light, polite applause. Then, Kyoko cleared her throat. “Speaking of Nishina, however, there has been a complication… Well, several actually…” Makoto nodded grimly, and the other leaders’ faces darkened. “Most of our nuclear products and equipment has been lost, destroyed or stolen, leaving much of the operation in ruins. It doesn’t help that several of the old-world governments’ intel was either false, or deliberately wrong. However, more worrying is that we now know that the enemy seems to know what we are doing. Whether or not we have a traitor in our midst is unknown; although it does help that, with the fall of figures such as Towa, the Despair probably won’t get their hands on usable nuclear weapons.” She paused, taking a sip of water.

“There is also one other problem: One of our friends and comrades, Yasuhiro Hagakure, has been missing for almost a week now. Our search teams on the site he was at, in the south of the old United States, found the silo in ruins, with several corpses of his soldiers still intact, with he himself now essentially Missing In Action.” She stopped speaking, and bowed her head.

With the notices apparently over, Byakuya Togami began to give his own speech. “I would like to briefly thank all of you for your emotional attachment to me, attempting to support me as I went through my surgery. You have my thanks for helping to save the life of the last heir of Togami once again.” As plainspoken as usual, if not too blunt as he would usually state, he finished again. Another round of polite applause came with it.

The plane rattled as it finally landed at the sprawling base north-east of the former Japanese capital city. Makoto tightened his grip on his seat belts, feeling nervous all of a sudden.

What was wrong? He couldn’t tell. There was just… a feeling.

All he could say was that he was unsure what the future would bring. And that uncertainty made him truly…

Nervous. Frightened. Terrified.


	25. Chapter 25 – Free Fall (Junko Enoshima, et al.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collision course.

I spread out the cards in front of Tsumugi, who had her face looking melted on the table. We were bored; I would be the first to admit that. The train was taking longer than usual, mainly from some unusually high bombardment today. We were nearing Shirakawa Station, and I’d decided to test Tsumugi on something I was curious about.

I laid out the cards, and poked Tsumugi in her sleepy cheek. “What…?” She stated in a bored tone. “I wanna test something. May I have your attention?” I asked snappily. She perked up a bit, and looked at the spread I had made. “Oh… I see what you want to do. You want to test the Leech ability, right? With your Super Analytical Prowess, rather than your Despair or your Fashionista style, I suppose…” She yawned a bit. I nodded; it probably didn’t help this little task that Tsumugi basically already had this ability – which had in turn caused much of her own despair – but I honestly wanted to compare a little bit to myself.

Only, we wouldn’t get that chance just yet.

Just as she was about to turn over one of the cards, the train stopped all of a sudden. I felt the motion, and turned around in curiosity. I supposed we were near Shirakawa (a small city in Fukushima Prefecture that happened to have a shinkansen station that we were due to pass), but I didn’t think that we were actually at the station yet.

I had a bad feeling.

“Hey, Tsumugi, come into the toilet for a second with me, would you?” I smiled. She went a bright red. “Oh! Okay.” She accepted my offer, and I grabbed her hand firmly and sprinted to the loo.

And then the train car was lifted up into the air as a large “bunker buster” type missile hit the rails underneath us.

I guess Rantaro’s claim of an “indestructible” train was a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn’t help that the explosion was targeted under the train, where it was weaker. Speaking of the devil, as I was locking the toilet door, I did see him begin to sprint down the car.

A huge metallic rending sound reverberated around us as this section of the train was carved upwards. I continued holding onto Tsumugi, and we jumped out of the now-open toilet and onto one of the seats, as the car turned vertically from the explosion. We started jumping from seat to seat, going upwards. I still couldn’t see our enemies, but I did see Amami at the top, shouting something. My eardrums were still a bit broken from the explosion, so I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.

Another explosion hammered a car behind us, lifting us up once more. This time, I swung Tsumugi upwards, and used the lift from the blast to cast us to the top of the car.

I almost lost my grip on the door at the top, but Rantaro caught me, lifting us up with ease. Tsumugi surprisingly managed to hop past me and got herself up next to Amami; I suppose that could be within her symbiosis, but I didn’t quite have the time to theorise right now.

I looked over the smoke to find a large bunch of helicopters surrounding us. I squinted to see who they might be; the Future Foundation? Remnants of Despair? Who?

The answer soon became obvious when one of the choppers began a slight descent to a car opposite our overturned one, and a bunch of people hopped out.

It was a group of the kiddies I had originally recruited from Class 77-B: Precisely, the Ultimate Yakuza, Fuyuhiko (Who I suppose wanted his eye back); the Ultimate Swordswoman, Peko Pekoyama (I almost killed her precious master…); the Ultimate Musician, Ibuki Mioda (Who was currently playing an awesome rendition of The Clash’s “Should I stay or Should I go?”); the Ultimate Coach, Nekomaru; and the Ultimate Imposter, who was currently looking like an overweight version of yours truly.

This ragtag team of angry looking ex-students was staring at us three on the other car, in a pretty cool fashion. I waved, grinning. “Yo! How’s it going my dudes?” I shouted across the wreckage. I was also planning a way to get to the engine car, because we still needed to get to Tokyo.

They continued to glare at us, slowly walking toward us as the wreckage billowed smoke (although Ibuki did wave back, cackling over the fires, smoke and music). I looked towards my comrades, who looked equally grim. Tsumugi walked quietly towards me, and whispered in my ear: “Boss, let us two take these guys on… I should be able to do the brunt of it, and Amami makes a good support member… I’m sure you have a plan to get us out of here, right?”

We began to walk towards the enemy ourselves; then, we all began to sprint. Nekomaru immediately went to tackle me, but I jumped and kicked him in the face before using his large figure to get a boost behind them. He grunted, trying to grab my leg but failing. I pecked him on the cheek before flipping upside down and past him. I turned a little bit, and was watching as Tsumugi battled it out with the Imposter (both now dressed as me, so it was a bit weird) whilst Amami was taking on both the Yakuza members at the same time, sword and arm clashing in a twisted, distorted manner.

Nekomaru continued to chase me, but his foot got stuck in one of the train car gaps. I waved my fingers in goodbye, and sprinted down the train roof. I noticed that the firepower and main helicopters and such was now focused on the end carriages, where the fighting was going down; but it didn’t give an explanation as to how or why the train itself had been stopped.

One helicopter did proceed to try and follow me, but I took a fragmentation grenade out of one of my pockets and chucked it with a complex trajectory into the window of it, where it proceeded to detonate and obliterate the machine in the process. At the same time, I took out my phone and texted my minions that I was nearing the engine.

I walked into a plume of smoke, and hopped down into the second-to-last carriage. I pulled the engine room door open, and stepped into the driver’s room to get the maglev machinery up and running again.

Slowly, but surely, this front section of the train (since the rest of it was now so damaged) started up again. And then I heard a click of a gun trigger next to my head.

Meanwhile, Rantaro had managed to kick the Ultimate Yakuza off the train, where he proceeded to hang with all of his might by his fingers, and Peko stopped fighting and rushed to help him up. He paced along the now-moving train (since they’d moved down the carriages from the wreckage to the intact ones) and stood next to Tsumugi, who had been fighting Nekomaru and the Imposter at the same time. “Having fun?” He grinned; but Tsumugi wore a grim face.

I turned from the driver’s seat to see my attacker, and found myself in yet another familiar position to the past, bringing me a quaint sense of déjà vu.

“Hey, Junko.” Nagito Komaeda stated in a flat tone.

“Yo, unlucky sod.” I responded in an equally flat manner.

We stared into each other’s eyes. A man so fixated on the idea of hope, staring at the physical embodiment of despair.

“How’s things been?” I asked, tilting my head to the side in a playful manner. “Oh, you know, so-so… It’s been nice to be so close to the very organisation that will bring such a hopeful future to the world, but… then you came along. Again.” He smiled a sad looking smile.

“Oh… you think the Future Foundation is bringing you hope, hm?” I grinned. “If they’re so hopeful, how come they can’t fix the world in, what, four years of action? I mean, they couldn’t even defend their own fucking headquarters the last time I noticed…” Komaeda gritted his teeth. “Well, I suppose that hope does come about from grim situations… Once, I watched a film that stated that ‘with great suffering comes great peace’, and I think that’s kind of correct.” He cocked the gun again, pressing it against my forehead.

“’With every great suffering, comes a great peace. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace.’” I responded. “It was a good film, right? Good franchise as well. But… isn’t this idea kind of what you believed when you were under my influence?” I licked my lips. “Is it true, though? Did the nuking of Hiroshima bring peace to the world? Has the Tragedy brought a bountiful harvest of your so-called peace?” I smiled a sickening smile. Komaeda’s face was blank.

“Hope isn’t winning at the moment, and it never will… Hope cannot exist without despair, either. So, how will the world survive, eh?” I grinned broadly. I then pushed my head into the barrel of the gun. “Come on. Shoot me. I’ve died before, I can die again. Won’t killing me, the author of all your pain, bring you so much hope? Or will it bring you unpleasant despair? Only one way to find out, upperclassman…” I held the gun in Komaeda’s shaking hands, willing him to shoot me.

He dropped the gun.

The gun hit the floor, span against the now moving train, hooked on an object, and shot him in the kneecap. He gave a cry of pain, and I picked him up and tossed him onto my shoulder. “See, thing is Komaeda… I think we made a good team back in the day, y’know? As brief as it was, mind you. So, tell you what… Show me your luck and your hope again soon, yeah?” I smiled in a nice manner, and then chucked him out of the train and into the abyss.

The conflict outside had seemed to have finished. I walked back to the roof of the train, to find Tsumugi and Rantaro chucking their defeated enemies into one of the helicopters out of an odd sense of mercy. I suppose that letting one’s enemies live would bring more future despair, but right now I thought it was strategically illogical. Which obviously brought me more despair.

And so, the train kept moving forwards to our destination.


	26. Chapter 26 – Pomp and circumstance (Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko hosts a meeting. Tsumugi makes a regretful decision. 
> 
> NB: I hope I got the terms and stuff in this chapter right - I had to research a particularly large amount for this! As always, kudos, bookmarks, and comments are appreciated.

The train finally came to a stop. Myself and my small entourage got off, and the train soared off again.

Tsumugi and I waved goodbye to Amami, who I had sent off to do some administrative bureaucracy, and the last two of us took a connecting route to our destination: Saitama, or specifically, the NTT DoCoMo Saitama Building.

We reached the looming skyscraper, and took a different direction inside to a changing room (uh, disabled bathroom; you know, the bigger one? Usually has baby changing facilities and stuff? Yeah?).

In silence, we prepared for the meeting. I helped Tsumugi get dressed into a plain blue school uniform, and then she donned a plain looking black and white theatrical comedy mask, with which she could conceal her face and distort her voice. Then, the main event arrived:

See, the people we were meeting – the leaders of the other factions of the Remnants of Despair – seemed to like a bit of fanciness; pomp and circumstance, the whole shebang. So, as their God, I was doing my part to look all fancy and pretty. I got changed into a modified sokutai (a version of the imperial ceremonial attire, although I had this one adapted for myself since I don’t particularly like the overcomplex and annoying Jūnihitoe, which I always thought of as a bit too frilly). Finally, I had my new handmaiden Tsumugi put on my makeup, including painting my fingernails.

She seemed to enjoy all of this, especially doing my fingernails. No wonder she wanted to be an ultimate cosplayer when she was a kid.

Finally, all dressed up, we slowly made our way to the floor where the other leaders had already convened. We’d had some of our minions deck out one of the top floors for this particular occasion, setting up shoji and such to make it seem rather formal and fancy. The traditional format of the area seemed rather out of place in a hyper-modern skyscraper building.

Thus, we walked into the meeting room; the leaders – 7, not including Tsumugi – were sitting in seiza around a long, flat table, in avid discussion over various matters, but came to a halt when myself and Tsumugi walked in. They bowed their heads as if in prayer, and I sat with my legs crossed in a somewhat informal Kiza position at the head of the table, taking out a kiseru incense pipe to complete my formal position.

Tsumugi remained standing next to the door, and announced: “Junko Enoshima-sama, God Empress of Despair and our true leader.” I took a breath out of the pipe, blew out, and smiled. “’Sup.” I grinned.

The leaders chuckled. One, a young woman slightly younger than Tsumugi, raised her head and spoke: “My queen, how are you? How did you come back from the dead?” I nodded in response, before stating flatly: “I ascended from the depths of hell through nothing more than my own free will and an iron determination for my goals, to be with you once more.” There was a general murmur around the room.

Another leader, this one a man in his early 50s, cleared his throat. “Your highness, you have had us gather here today; what do you wish of us?”

I smiled sweetly, before snapping my fingers twice. Tsumugi came up from behind, and started gathering out several small black cases to each leader. “My dears, I have a great, great plan for the world, one that myself and several of my comrades have formulated for the culmination of all despair across the world.” There was a small cheer, just as Tsumugi finished giving out the objects. “Please, open the items. I need you all to do me just a few little things…”

They all began unwrapping and opening the boxes. Inside each one was a small pistol.

“I need you all to kill yourselves.” I grinned mercilessly.

There were several reactions around the smoky room; some gasped, some chuckled in amusement, and some simply nodded blankly. I continued: “I need you all to die. As soon as possible; use the guns provided and, on the count of 10, you will all shoot yourselves in the head. Simple!” I spoke with a charming tone.

I counted down. There was continuous shouting from some sides, shaking heads from others, but there were some leaders who simply held the gun next to their head, waiting for my signal.

10\. 9. 8. 7. “You can’t do this!” 6. 5. “We’re your allies! Why?!” 4. 3. “This is ridiculous.” 2. “See you on the other side, comrades.” 1.

0.

The sound of three bursts of confetti sounded around the room, as four people dived for cover as if to avoid any mess.

I cackled, holding my stomach in laughter, and gleefully wiping tears from my eyes.

“Ah, that was hilarious!” I cried. Tsumugi and a few others started to applaud politely. “Well, that was fun. Anyways, could you three come with me for a mo? I think these four need to recover from this oh so traumatic experience…” I picked myself up and walked off into another room, this one slightly more modern, followed in turn by Tsumugi and the three who followed my command. As I sat down in a modern swivel chair, I picked up a remote left on the table.

“Pathetic.” I stated flatly. And I pressed a button on the remote.

BOOM. A large explosion tore through the nearby room with the four treacherous leaders still within, blasting a gaping hole in the floor we were on. I crossed my legs and leant on the table. The others in the room with me seemed to relax a little, as if they’d passed some sort of test; Tsumugi stood in the background, one foot flat on the wall.

And so, I gutted most of the leadership of the Remnants of Despair in one foul swoop, distributing command and power between those I now knew I could trust. I gave them their share of the Great Plan, and then let them be on their way for the preparations.

And so, Tsumugi and I were left on our own. We had both gotten dressed into something a little more practical and informal. I waltzed through the crumbling floor, looking into the ruin with the bloody, mangled and burned corpses still lying around.

Tsumugi sighed a little, taking off her mask, and stood close to the hole in the wall (ha!), and leaning out into the abyss, the wind blowing in her hair.

I realised that an ominous silence had filled the air all of a sudden. I blinked.

Tsumugi turned to me, her eyes devoid of colour and light.

“All conditions are clear, by the looks of it. All that’s left in my way are the Future Foundation and… you.” She spoke without blinking, her eyes looking through me. She smiled lightly. “It’s time for a little bit of a coup, though… I’m probably going to fail. But it’s worth a shot!” She continued a little, with a bit more emotion to it.

I grinned, tilting my head, allowing the wind from the hole to blow my hair backwards. I stood, my arms crossed, and my legs stood apart. “Oh? You want my role, then? Bit cliché and a bit early, right?” I queried.

Tsumugi nodded, as if accepting some unknown duty. And so, we stared at one another, a gloomy yet eager tension between us.


	27. Chapter 27 – Deicide (Tsumugi Shirogane vs Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko and Tsumugi have a light disagreement.
> 
> NB: Still a wee bit disheartened by the lack of comments or bookmarks tbh... any chance of a few comments? Even if it's criticism?

Our physical bodies were quite well matched, as were our talent and intellect. I don’t think either of us wanted a physical conflict, and we wouldn’t be having one – ever. So, in a kind of boring way, we had to have another little bit of an argument. I guess… time is saving the good fights for later, maybe?

Tsumugi sat down on the crispy, burned table. I leaned against the shoji doorpost.

“What do you want, really, Tsumugi?” I struck first. She grinned. “I want nothing. Despair, despair, despair, a world under my thumb with nothing but little me at the top. Simple!” I shook my head. “But that’s wrong, ain’t it? You have desires, right? Wishes? Loves?” She struck back; “Such things are irrelevant, simple side quests in this boring video game of life; in this world, it’s kill or be killed!” She giggled, both at the reference and at the atmosphere.

Her suddenly maniacal laughter rang out of the room. One hand at her hip, the other tilting her glasses, her hair blowing in the wind… She was really going out of her way. “Yeah, whatever you say. You’re not despairing enough though, are you? Heck, you’re weaker than my smelly but dead sister, if I had to say!” I spoke, slicing through the dramatics. She dodged; “My despair outweighs yours, because mine is newer – it has now existed longer in this world, and you can’t do nothing about it!” She cried. I dodged again, not wanting to slip. “Nah, that ain’t right though – mine’s the original, and the best! You know what you called me yourself? God Empress of Despair! This ruined world is mine, because I’m the one who ruined it!” I slapped back, making her stop in her tracks.

“Nope! Simple platitudes to butter you up, like my attempts to feel your big beautiful boobs!” She smiled, backhanding my words. I pushed forward: “So, you admit my boobs are big! I am glad, you know…” Tsumugi tutted, lifting her head to the hole in the wall. “Irrelevant, your honour? Big boobs don’t necessarily guarantee despairful despair!” She smiled. “Maybe the afterlife wants your big boobs back…”

I shook my head. “Nah, the afterlife can’t handle these buns, hun! I’m the real deal, the motherfucking J-U-N-K-O, and don’tcha forget it!” I slammed my hand on the table, sending a crack through its ashen face. It crumbled, and Tsumugi kicked the remains out of the hole. There was now nothing between me and my opponent, and we circled one another, each of our despair filled hearts and eyes focused on our objective.

“You know, a good old-fashioned coup d’état would do our branding real good…” I squinted, tripping a bit on my words for a second. Tsumugi rushed into the opportunity; “Coup d’état? Ha! What I’m after is deicide – the death of the despair goddess!” I stumbled, caught off guard, before slamming back: “Ah-ha! So, you admit my godliness? Amazing – from the mouth of my rebellious underling herself! Maybe you’re not just another plain Jane after all…” I grinned. Tsumugi looked taken aback.

“Plain Jane? Never heard that one before. I’m the plainest there can be after all, so forgettable that I’m the mastermind you’ll never see coming! Fall to my misery, oh ye earth!” She cried. I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, no. You’re like the odd one out; if it comes to it, you’d be the first to go out of the final trial, because everyone else is just another protagonist… You’re like me, an antagonist!” I paused for breath, Tsumugi crossing her arms and muttering ‘Huh?’; “And since I’m the original antagonist, maybe it’s best that you stick to what you’re good at – being a leech on the backs of others!”

“Meh.” She stated flatly. “If you’re in a story, you’re probably one or ‘tother, and I really wanna be the protagonist of my own story, you know? At least I’m not a fake-arse villain who doesn’t know when to die!” She shouted out loud, trying to ignore the blowing wind and the creaking of the paper doors.

I was taken aback by her sudden aggression, and realised that I’d almost hit a weak spot. I grinned, advancing further: “Nah… you’re weak… you’re so interested in making it up as you go along, you haven’t noticed that you’ve already brought about your own downfall...” I spoke quickly, my brow darkening. She narrowed her eyes at me, as if concentrating on some distant future – and there, I knew that my super analytical prowess was only just a bit better than hers. I could win.

I continued my advance. “And what was that about before, wanting hope through despair? Is that really what you want? Des—” I was interrupted. “No, that’s wrong!” She sliced across my path, and I realised that this must be the final stand. I attacked once more, ignoring her interruption.

“You’re weak, Tsumugi. And I know why. You can’t kill me, your despair…” (“Wrong! Wrong! Despair beyond despair beyond despair…”) “I am your despair goddess, and you will do as I want. This world will be mine, and you are one of my tools—” (“Hope through Despair! Despair through Hope! This will be my world through my plan, not yours!”) “—because I know just how to use you. You’re nothing without me, Tsumugi. You’re just another leech off of my despair in reality, for I was the catalyst of your rise…”

She stopped, unmoving and glancing downwards.

“I know your weakness, Tsumugi, and it is why you are mine until the day I finally go back from whence I came. The reason is…”

And I spoke the words, the wind blowing them into the upper atmosphere. Tsumugi collapsed, her skin white as a sheet. She came close a few times, but ultimately, this argument had been mine from the beginning.

She sighed, rising a little, but bowing her head and prostrating herself on the floor. “Fine, Junko-sama. I will be your servant, your sister, and your love until your untimely demise…” I shook my head in disgust. “Sister? Please. You’re pathetic; at least she had the common decency not to go straight into an unwinnable fight. Nah, you can just be one of my pawns, as you always have been. You are my underling, Tsumugi, my weak weak servant, and so you shall be. But work your arse off, and maybe I’ll let you succeed me…” I grinned, before walking off. She followed behind me, trudging along. The despair of this little conflict fuelled me and irritated her, and I loved every moment of it. But she said nothing in response; she looked beaten and bruised, yet…

There was something else.

We left the building, and I pressed another button on that remote, and watched as each floor exploded, letting the debris and smoke fall around us as the skyscraper collapsed into itself, the foundation and structure falling inwards and crumbling, sending a dark grey smoke cloud upwards. We watched in silence as the building was annihilated from existence.

“Wow! That’s cool!” We heard a voice. Tsumugi and I turned around, and saw a masculine looking figure with glowing green eyes standing next to a rickety looking car, staring at the collapsing building.

Wasn’t he…?


	28. Chapter 28 – Human Error (?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance meeting.

He’d been on the phone quietly in the cold cafeteria area, in the middle of the night, making arrangements for a certain set of parameters and circumstances to fall into place matching the turn of events. He sat down in a huff, frankly pissed off that such things were happening.

Suddenly, he noticed a young woman spying on him from a nearby pillar. He stood up, motioning for her to reveal herself.

He knew who she was in an instant. She walked forward, showing herself to him. He nodded his head, understanding. She was in a similar situation to himself; she needed something just as he needed it just as much. He didn’t like her, and she didn’t terribly like him.

But, there and then, they made a small alliance of sorts, to achieve the ends they needed in the coming days, as time continued to press on.

As such, their small coincidental meeting and concurring arrangements would have long ranging effects on the future of the world.


	29. Chapter 29 – Surprise! (K1-B0, Tsumugi Shirogane, Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The robot appears.

“Eh?! Ain’t that the bot you were gutting back at your smelly apartment?” I shouted aloud, pointing at the robot, who was running over to us, letting his car fall down, and smash to pieces in a foul stutter.

“It’s rude to point!” He cried, sprinting at us at full pelt. Tsumugi, still shell-shocked from the recent infighting, held up a hand. “Stop…” She said quietly.

The robot stopped in its tracks, as if suddenly caught in some kind of web of glue. “Yes Master!” He shouted in a loud and annoying manner. I rolled my eyes. “So, what is this thing?” I motioned towards him, talking to Tsumugi.

The robot coughed in a loud and fake manner. “Ahem! I am K1-B0, the Hope Robot – Ultimate Edition! I was once property of the Towa Group, but I am now owned by one Ms Shirogane, Tsumugi! And I am most definitely NOT a ‘thing’!” The robot almost blared across the area, having literally no sense of decency or tact. “It is nice to meet you all personally for the first time!” He bowed deeply, not really having a full sense of bodily function and smashing his head straight into the ground, before groaning.

I sighed, staring with grimly judgemental eyes at Tsumugi. She rolled her eyes at me, and I tutted.

The robot perked up a bit again. “Wait! Do I sense some tension between the two of you?” He shouted again.

“Hey, do you have any fucking humanity in you, bloody machine? Read the air, genius…” I snapped at him, shutting the robot up. Tsumugi stood up in response, and walked over to the robot, patting him on the head. He looked up at her in surprise with a look of contentment.

“I’m your new master, K1-B0. Do you mind if I call you “Keebo” by the way? It’s easier to pronounce…” She smiled gently. I tutted again, clicking my tongue irritably. “Stupid bloody hope robot my arse… Can’t we remodel the daft thing and make it a badass despair robot?” I grumbled.

Tsumugi tutted in response. “My robot, my rules. I like him; and he has the essence of ultimates within him, and you know how much I like that shit…” She sniffed his metallic hair, and he looked up in response. I stared at him… was he blushing? Sweating? Do robots blush?

Wait… If a robot is like a human…

I walked over to the machine and groped its genital area. He screamed out loud. “This is harassment! I am a person too! I have boundaries!” He noisily gave out his disagreement. Tsumugi turned bluntly to me and shoved me lightly away.

I thought to myself… The age-old question from the dawn of time had been answered.

Robots do indeed have dicks.


	30. Chapter 30 - Ex nihilo nihil fit (Hajime Hinata, Izuru Kamakura)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two counterparts talk in a void.

A dark, lavender void of a universe flowed around the young man.

There was nothing but him here. Everything else was long gone.

He sighed. Opening his eyes to show a luminescent, almost robotic and artificial red, he brushed a long hair off of his nose.

“How boring…” He muttered.

There was a flash, and the world turned white.

On a nearby pedestal, Hajime Hinata sat twiddling his thumbs, and looked towards Izuru Kamakura.

“You grace me with your presence again. Do you need something?” Izuru spoke.

Hajime shook his head. “Not really. Just thought I’d give you a quick status update, since you seemed like you weren’t really doing anything around here…”

He hopped off, looking around the white void. “Hmm… this little imagination world that you’ve made for yourself reminds me of the computerised console rooms back at the Neo World Programme… Do you still have no imagination?” Hinata complained loudly.

Izuru stared at him. “Imagination is pointless when one can already envision anything and everything in reality.” Hinata rolled his eyes. “One day, you’ll brighten up a bit, dude…” Izuru looked almost like he was going to raise an eyebrow, but decided against it. Hajime grinned a little bit.

He looked around. “Anyways, this does remind me. We’re making significant progress with the Neo World Program. We’ve successfully generated a fully autonomous, non-programmed version of Chiaki, which, you might be happy about, means we may well be able to bring her into our reality. However, we’re still struggling with actually getting people in and out of the Program without going into a coma. So, there’s that…” He stopped, and tutted a bit.

“Saying that imagination is pointless is kind of dumb, you know. Imagining stuff is one of the few examples of nothing coming from nothing… not even the universe came from simply nothing, and yet we little humans down on Earth can make entire universes and stories simply in our heads. Doesn’t that intrigue you?” Hajime explained. Izuru sighed, about to go into a spiel about how dreams and imagination weren’t something from nothing, but products of psychology and such… but he remembered that it would just be going into an avoidable conversation.

Hajime stood up, and almost tripped over his own two feet. He chuckled; Izuru licked his lips, realising that he hadn’t technically eaten or drank anything in almost two years, but quickly getting over any excitement he felt towards that fact.

“Hmm… Is that it?” Hajime mumbled. Izuru blinked. “If that’s it, then I’m sure you have better things to be doing rather than boring me with your dull antics…”

Hajime turned to Izuru again. “Oh, there was one thing that I forgot to mention…”

“Junko Enoshima is alive.”

Izuru stopped and turned to the grim-faced Hajime.

“Is… that so?”

Hajime nodded; and Izuru looked upwards.


	31. Chapter 31 – Distraction (Junko Enoshima et al.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Danganronpa takes a small break.

Somewhere nearby, someone was playing jazz.

I sipped a lukewarm milkshake out of the somewhat limescale covered mug, as I sat around the table with Keebo, Tsumugi and Rantaro.

We had found the spot in the ruins of the Tokyo Dome near the Shinjuku and Chiyoda wards, and Keebo had shown off his… talent(?) at making milkshakes out of what ingredients we could scavenge from nearby.

Honestly? It wasn’t the worst milkshake I’ve ever had. Not that I’d recommend it.

So, we’d kind of been summarising what each of us had been up to. You know what me and Tsumugi had been screwing around with; Rantaro hadn’t been up to much except some miscellaneous administrative bureaucracy and communications…

Keebo was the interesting factor. He’d woken up with a start on the operating table in Tsumugi’s apartment back in Sapporo (presumably, according to Tsumugi, due to a power outage and then restart which may have caused his circuits to reconnect and such), and had proceeded to get lost in his environment. Luckily, a dog running around helped him find some friendly people to get him on his merry way (Tsumugi also mentioned at that point that there “wasn’t anything to worry about Sapporo-wise; in the event of my not-being-there, I have some automated shows running to keep the area secure…”). He’d used some of his equipment unlocked within his body, such as some rocket boosters, to blast himself and a small car he had “borrowed” (“Well nobody else was using it!” He said; “Yeah, probs because they’re dead… not that’d we’d complain.” I responded) all the way along the shinkansen line… somehow.

Either way, here we were. Sitting around in a ruined stadium, drinking lukewarm mouldy milkshakes, and planning the destruction of the world.

Just like the good old times…

“SHIT!” I said aloud, jumping up. Tsumugi looked up in surprise, Rantaro continued sipping his milkshake, and Keebo suddenly aimed a laser cannon at me. “WE’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE MEETING!” I cried out.

Tsumugi’s eyes widened. “H-how? With our talents combined, how the fuck did we forget something so important?!” She rushed to put on her coat and mask, and I dashed to the toilet to relieve myself and put on some makeup.

We made our way outside and sprinted out, whilst Keebo and Rantaro ran behind us, shouting “What meeting?!”. And that was that!


	32. Chapter 32 – Palace of Lies (Junko Enoshima et al.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junko meets a somewhat new, somewhat old, associate; they get off to a rocky start.
> 
> NB: Shame AO3 won't let me upload multiple chapters at the same time. I really wanted to upload all 100 of so that I've got up to what I'm writing currently. Either way...  
> NB-2: Also, feeling a bit sullen in my writing at the moment. I think I was reading a brilliant book the other day, and I felt like "all I write is but straw", to quote an old thinker. But I'm carrying on; not because my writing is good, but because I damn well want to write this to the end - because I want closure to the end of V3 as much as everyone else, and I'll be damned it I don't get it. Though... it's taking a while to write it all, and it still has a few "anime filler" chapters... but it's worth it, I hope, in my humble opinion. I just want... an ending. But we're 300 or so chapters away from it, so I'll try to get a hustle on! Or take my time. I don't know, really. I just want a good thing to write that others can enjoy as well, I suppose. Anyway! On with the story.

“WHO’S IDEA WAS THIS?!” I screamed. “YOURS!” Keebo screamed back.

Realising how late we were, we had all tentatively grabbed onto Keebo’s back, and were currently flying through the ruins of Tokyo at the speed of a bullet. The wind was whipping my face, making it look like jelly, whilst Tsumugi’s hair was blowing so wildly she looked like a rather large spider.

Also, Amami was there too.

Finally, we reached the destination: The Kōkyo; the Japanese Imperial Palace. At least, what remained of it.

It was a despairfully grim sight. There was no need to question whose bodies were piled up, hung, or nailed to and around the main entrance; such a sight would make some feel sick, especially given the importance of such a thing, and yet I found myself bored of these displays.

We got off Keebo, and made our way into the Palace gardens; Amami stayed at the gates, partly to stay on guard, and partly to pay his respects to the remains of the Imperial Family, and that of the Emperor. Keebo stayed with him, mainly out of curiosity.

Tsumugi and I walked along the path into the main gates of the Imperial Palace; old sakura blossom leaves were strewn across our path, from trees that would never bloom again. Several buildings, trees and walls were burned beyond recognition, but there were some people around. At first, we assumed they were old residents, servants and the like, but each one of them had a Future Foundation insignia, whilst covering their faces with balaclavas, and pointing us in various directions.

See, Tsumugi had stated that she’d been in contact with a higher-up in the echelons of the Future Foundation for a large portion of the Tragedy, granting her intel, weapons and the like; finally, likely spurred on by my return, the informant had agreed upon a meeting with us.

And so, here we were, stepping into one of old Japan’s highest cultural relics. We finally reached one of the larger residence buildings in the Fukiage Ōmiya and stepped inside, taking off our shoes. We were ushered into a somewhat humble looking library and living room area, where someone was sitting with their backs to us.

“Hello?” I said to the figure. There was some head movement, and the figure slowly swivelled their chair around.

“Hmph. So, we finally meet again.” Byakuya Togami stated in a dark, flat tone. He was stroking a large, fat, dark grey cat with a frilly collar (the cat was familiar…) and drinking a rather black looking blend of coffee.

“Ha!” I grinned, greeting my former classmate sarcastically. “Guess who’s coming to dinner, huh? How’s your shoulder, by the way? Want me to step on it again?” I laughed mercilessly. Togami’s face remained thunderous.

Tsumugi gave a nod of acknowledgement, and we sat down. Aloysius, his butler, came and served us drinks, which we rather graciously accepted; and then we got down to business.

“I’m assuming we don’t need introductions and such?” I asked. Togami raised an eyebrow. “Is the sky blue?” He replied sarcastically. “If we’re going to sit around lazily, talking idle chit-chat, I could have stayed with Naegi and the motley crew.” He nuzzled the nape of Grand Bois Cheri’s neck, and the cat bounced off him, purring, before walking off.

“The way I see it, this meeting should be short, to the point, and fruitful, otherwise you’re no better than the rest of those plebs rotting around the world.” He explained in a blunt and crude manner. He obviously wasn’t in the mood for… well, anything really.

“O-Kay!” I smiled. “Well then. You want the Togami name restored to its former glory, I want the world on a silver platter… I think we can make some arrangements, right?” I queried pointedly. Togami gave a dry smile, and nodded. “Not quite, but we’re on the right track.”

And then he pulled out a small revolver and pointed it at my head.

“I think we should do this the old-fashioned way… Let’s decide this over a classic gamble. If you win, I will accept whatever your future holds in store for me, on the condition that you help me bring back my name; if I win, I kill you, right here and right now, but on the condition that the Remnants of Despair continue to run as they have done thus far. Oh, and if you refuse to play, that will count as a loss for you. Sound fair?” He explained in an ominous manner.

I grinned, the despair of the somewhat predictable and cliched moment but still kind of cool moment getting to me. “Seems suitable enough. What’s the game then, boss?” I asked, smiling.

Togami clapped his hands, and Aloysius brought over a large round table, and a stack of tarot cards. “I’m assuming you’ve heard of the old game of ‘Tarot Cards of Fate’?” He queried. I nodded, vaguely remembering it from an anime. “Well, this is a slightly modified and simplified version… I simply call it “fate” …”.

The 22-card deck was shuffled, half by Aloysius and half by Tsumugi, and then shuffled once more, before being divvied up in a circle around the table. Togami’s Butler and my servant were the de facto adjudicators, judging the game to ensure neither of us cheated.

It was like a sort of broken version of blackjack. Each card represented a number; the Magician being 1, and the Fool being 22. Each player takes their turn to pick three cards – the past, the present, the future – and the cards are added up to a total. Once three have been picked up by each player, the player may either call, or pick up another three cards to add to their total, but this can only be done a total of four times, since there are only so many cards. The closest to 22 in total when called wins; but if one is over 22, they automatically lose that round.

“Makes sense?” Togami asked, looking down at the table and sipping his drink. “Yeah, makes sense. Bit boring though; I’d have preferred Russian Roulette, but whatever…” I answered.

And so, the game began.


	33. Chapter 33 – Excited Dog (K1-B0, Rantaro Amami)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bork...?

Keebo stood next to Amami, who was in a praying position for the Imperial Family’s souls to be at peace.

He stood over Amami.

He bent down and sniffed Amami.

. . .

Smelled of avocados. Sweet! He thought to himself.

He stared at Amami’s various tatoos, trinkets, and other quirks, and grinned. He too had his own unique features that were far superior to any humans, but to see other people’s things was still a learning experience.

Amami grinded his teeth, ignoring the robot tip-toeing around to look at the young man in fascinated curiosity.


	34. Chapter 34 - Qui audet adipiscitur (Junko Enoshima, Byakuya Togami)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Togami is defeated - emotionally and physically. Junko discovers something which will change the course of history.  
> NB: I really felt I knocked this one out of the ballpark (for my own work, anyway). It also helped me set up something else to really spice things up. Oh, I can't wait to show you all. Soon. Eventually.  
> NBNB: Should I be calling these A/Ns and putting them at the end...? Over here, we use NB, since it means "Note", but I guess Author's Note makes sense as well...

Statistically speaking, in games similar to blackjack and such, the player – the away team, if you will – is more likely to succeed than the dealer – the home team. This is due to the strange fact that the home team – in this case, Togami – is more likely to go bust than the away team – that is, myself.

By assigning the tarot cards values, half the battle of card counting had already been won. Even after Aloysius had secretly shuffled in a forced shuffle manner, my photographic memory allowed me to helpfully discern which card was which and get to the right amount at the correct time before Amami.

Which is to say… this game was rigged from the start. Not by the dealer, mind, but by those who were dealt. How poetic.

Togami stood in defeat, almost shocked at his loss. You’d have thought that one of the key players of the Future Foundation would be able to see the risk of playing gambling against someone with super analytical prowess, but he was so caught up in the emotions of getting his hands on my sweet throat that I suppose reality got thrown to the wind.

I crossed my legs, and placed my chin onto my raised hand, gleefully grinning in my inevitable victory.

Too gleefully, perhaps. Togami screamed, and launched himself into the air at me. I rose to defend myself, and Tsumugi sprinted towards him, but a single voice stopped everything.

“Byakuya-san.” Togami’s Butler, Aloysius, cried out in a grim voice. Togami stopped in his tracks, and I raised an eyebrow. The butler walked towards the group of us, stone faced, his stern, sharp blues eyes staring daggers towards the young man he served.

“Do not dirty the great name of Togami for simple emotion and conflict. You are beyond that, young master.” He said in a deadly serious tone.

Togami was sweating profusely, his fist an inch close to my face, the warmth of it blowing across my nose. I stood, silent, still grinning.

He stopped, and dropped his arms to his sides, sitting down in complete despair. He started to cry, and bawled his eyes out. Aloysius put his arm across his chest, and bowed to us. “Forgive myself and my master, but would you give us a few minutes?”

We nodded and went into the room next door. It was an extension of the library, but the books in here seemed to be older. Perhaps this was a private archive of sorts? There were bookcases, glass cases, and various shelves of knowledge. I went to look around, and Tsumugi stood at the door to await the all clear.

I noticed a particularly ornate cabinet and took a closer look. To my utmost surprise, I found myself staring at the Kojiki (the record of ancient matters from early Japan); and not just any old copy, but this one looked as though it was the original, according to the inscription on the cabinet. I could have sworn that the earliest version left was the Shinpukuji-bon, which was kept under lock and key somewhere in the National Diet Library, and even that was only from the 1300s. This, however, was dated around the time of the original, which was transcribed on the orders of Empress Genmei at around 712CE…

I carefully lifted the ancient manuscript scrolls and placed it on a reading stand. I grabbed some archival gloves and some good lighting so as to not to damage it, and began to read.

And thus, the fate of existence was sealed.

This edition, presumably the first edition, wasn’t anything like the copies of other manuscripts I had known of… It was in far more detail than anything I knew of. Naturally, it was written in the archaic form of Old Japanese, which is significantly more difficult to understand than more modern forms, but I got decent understanding from it.

What I was more intrigued by was a set of maps and diagrams describing the story of the Kamiyonanayo, the creation of the world, and the story of Izanami and Izanagi. It seemed to be pointing towards points of origin, and some complex ancient co-ordinates among other things.

And then…

Then…

I grinned. If this… was what I thought it was…

“Puhuhu…” I giggled quietly, not wanting to disturb the emotional moment next door. Tsumugi peeked around the corner of a bookshelf to check on me, but I ignored her.

I grabbed a small contained nearby, and carefully inserted the Kojiki into it, and placed it on my shoulder before returning to Tsumugi. “Find any good books?” She queried. I nodded calmly.

Suddenly, the door next to us shuttered open, and we were ushered through once more. Togami stood next to the table, his back straight. He seemed to be calmer, and had a more… pleasant… energy to him. He noticed us.

He simply dropped on his knees, and prostrated himself in dogeza in front of us. “Please, forgive my rudeness earlier.” The man said. I tutted, almost taken aback from the formal decency that the formerly arrogant man had. “Now, now, we all have our days, don’t we?” Tsumugi smiled. I shook my head. “Nah… If you want me to forgive you, lick my feet. Smell them!” I commanded.

Togami lifted his head in surprise, and Aloysius audibly groaned behind us. Tsumugi went up to me and slapped me round the ear. “Hey!” I complained. “Now, now, boss, let’s be polite to our new allies, yeah? After all, we have a world waiting for us now, right?” She stated flatly.

I rolled my eyes and admitted defeat. “Okies, I was just joking anyway… Up you get, now.” I held out my left hand to Togami. “Partners, I guess?” I smiled in a sarcastic manner.

Togami ignored my hand and got up, and we all sat down once more.

“So, I am at your disposal, Enoshima-san. What would you have of me?” He tilted his head slightly.

“What do I want? Well, I don’t want to explain my full plan just yet to the likes of you, but I suppose I could enlighten you a little bit…” I explained. “I want a meeting. Between us, the remnants of Despair – and we’re called Team Danganronpa now, by the way – and the Future Foundation.”

Togami raised an eyebrow. “You… want a meeting? What, of negotiations? After nearly half a decade of fighting and no surrender tactics?” He grinned cruelly. “Don’t make jokes like that…”

I stopped smiling, my face deadly serious. “It isn’t a joke. I want to come to the table with a set of reasonable demands and a deal to save the world.”

Togami visibly straightened up in his chair. “Huh… How curious.” He raised his hand to his face, and stroked his chin.

He looked behind him, to the other side of the room, that was somewhat immersed in darkness. “Hey, do you think we can get away with that?” He shouted.

A figure emerged from the darkened doorway from the other side, nodding.

Mikan Tsumiki smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NBNBNB: Also - do you guys like the more detailed stuff about culture and what not? I really like Japanese culture and whatnot, and getting to put it into Danganronpa and stuff feels really good. On a final note... I'm never terribly sure what way to best characterise Mikan - she was one of my fave characters in SDR2, and yet... Well. I hope my writing gives her some justice in the next chapter, anyway.


	35. Chapter 35 – March to Victory (Junko Enoshima et al.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikan talks to Junko, and reveals something new.

She stood in the darkness, smiling an adorable little smile.

“U-um… Hi?” She greeted us in a cautious manner. I opened my mouth, but closed it again, not sure what to say. Here she was, a girl almost exactly the same as my despairingly departed sister, perhaps even more so, that I used for my own purposes, and yet I arguably had a more detailed relationship with her than any other Remnant of Despair (my irritating sister aside). She was worse than my sister in that I didn’t even have a bare shred of liking for her, and yet… Hmph. Why would she be here, anyway? Hadn’t Hajime and the gang cured her of my despair?

Togami stood up. “Now, now, upperclassman, no need to be shy! We’re all friends here.” He smiled kindly.

The girl perked up a bit. “F-friends? I’m… friends with my… b-beloved?” She smiled sweetly, before looking at Tsumugi and Aloysius, who were equally looking at her. “O-oh! N-n-nice to meet all of y-you for the first… time… I’m Tsumiki Mikan… the Ultimate N-nurse…” She did a little curtsey.

I sighed, and waved. “Yo, Mikan.” My greeting made her go bright red. “You… noticed me! U-uwah!” She grinned in an emphatic manner.

I turned to Togami. “Wanna explain a bit?” I stated harshly.

He shrugged; “Girl, I have almost as little a clue as you do… I found her spying on me a while ago while I was on the phone to Tsumugi, and she’s been secretly clinging on to me ever since, as if she’s been dying to meet all of you…” He explained in a blunt manner. I sighed, and turned back to the girl, who was quivering nervously, still covered by the shadows.

“Mikan… would you explain what’s going on? I don’t think you’re still on despair, but I also don’t think that you’re some kinda spy… So, what’s up?” I inquired. She pursed her lips a bit, and looked like she was going to cry – well, more than she usually did – before taking a breath in. “W-well… If I-I had to say… I… um…” She stuttered. “I…

… still love yo… you!” She smiled. I smirked. “Wait, really? Even after losing my despair and realising all I did to you?” She nodded in response. “Well… Even if I n-n-no longer have your despair… my memories of you weren’t… erased? And… if I may be so bold… you abused me and u-used me, but… so does everyone… else… but you d-did it in such a way that your use of me as a tool for your… despair… was actually, um… better than anyone else did… to me… sorry if that sounds… dumb.” She blinked, and held her arms up to her face in apparent embarrassment.

Hmph. This was a tough one… I didn’t want to keep her by my side, because such a presence would irritate me… but I also didn’t want to throw her away, because that would damage relations to Togami by making me seem even more inhumane in this emotional moment…

As if hearing my thoughts, Tsumugi stepped forward. Mikan winced, as if expecting to be hit; but instead, Tsumugi pulled her out of the shadows and into a hug.

The room could hear the girl’s whimpers loud and clear. “Uhm… uhm… w-what are you…” Mikan cried out, sounding as though she would bawl. Tsumugi smiled, pulling her in tighter and lightly patting the older girl’s forehead.

“It’s OK now, Mikan Tsumiki. Everything is going to be OK. You don’t need to be used, or abused. We’re all friends here, and we, Team Danganronpa, need your talents to fuel our strength; to bring hope through despair, and despair through hope…” Tsumugi spoke in a delicate manner, holding her in deeply, about 10 centimetres above her but bowing her head and stroking the older ex-student.

The crying bawls of the sobbing girl filled the room. I crossed my arms, smiling with contentment that the situation had been defused in a suitable manner; and Togami and his butler sat sipping their drinks.

And so that little dilemma came to an end.

Mikan pulled back a little bit, and we sat down. Suddenly, she looked surprised, and began rustling inside her clothing; we all looked at her in bemusement, before she pulled out a large vial of liquid.

“What’s this?” I queried. Mikan smiled, keen to answer: “I-it’s a… thing… left behind in one of… Seiko Kimura’s… labs… I thought… since the Future Foundation kn-knows about it… you should too…”

I gently took it out of the girl’s hands, and looked it over. A simple label on it stated: “Aqua vitae – Akashicite”. I knew exactly what the implication of those words were, and I grinned with glee.

“Thank you for this, Mikan… It will be of great use in the future.” I nodded, causing her to go bright red again. “But now, to business once more…”

Thus, we called Amami and Keebo back in, and put on a conference call between several of our associates. I went through a basic plan to get the great meeting together, with the help and probing of Mikan and Togami; and thus, the seeds of my success were further sown.


	36. Chapter 36 – Dead Man’s Trigger (Junko Enoshima)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despair comes for Hope once more.

A few days later…

The wind blew high on the mountaintops, blowing snow and dust across the wasteland this high up in the central Ishikari mountain range of Hokkaido. Some crows flew nearby, looking for corpses that had frozen on their way to the summit.

That blissful place; a plain filled with white flowers, wherein the Future Foundation had built the new Hope’s Peak Academy, their de facto headquarters.

The wind picked up, as a convoy of military trucks sped along a treacherous highway towards the summit.

I, Junko Enoshima, pulled on a dark wrestling mask, just as I had once before, to match those of the people in the truck surrounding me.

Under Mikan’s guidance, as one of the Future Foundation’s key doctors with the untimely demise of Seiko Kimura, the HQ had begun a monthly free checkup of anyone who wished for a health examination (with massive security precautions to an extent, of course); in the days of the Tragedy, disease was rife, and the effects of the various biological and chemical weapons unleashed on the world was widely untested. Thus, people came far and wide from across Japan, into the belly of the beast, and often in disguises and masks to conceal their identity from others in order to avoid risk of being charged as a traitor and such to their respective organisations; it was both a mass survey and experiment for the FF’s scientists, as well as a chance at getting more healthy or at least knowing how you might die, for many people.

The convoy reached the final security checkpoint, at the summit of hope itself. There weren’t any too invasive security checks or anything, surprisingly; they checked that the drivers had brought goods to trade for parking, or a valid application document, and they let us through.

And so, the group of us stepped out of our vehicular convoy; we were about 200 strong. We joined the long queue into the large reception area in the hall of the New Hope’s Peak Academy. There were hundreds of guards pointing weapons around us (the queue being over two thousand people long, made up of men, women, children, and various different pets), and, observing from a tinted glass window in an ominous manner, were various high-level members of the Future Foundation, including Makoto Naegi.

Though, as I would later find out, they were actually a bit busy at the time. They were in the middle of excommunicating a troublesome group of individuals from Class 77 who’d gone on an unauthorised mission for revenge, and failed miserably.

I stared at him through my mask, and giggled a little, the growing anticipation palpable. I covered my mouth in time, trying to keep the moment close at hand.

Soon, it was time.

A small beep was heard over the racket of the crowd. A guard was checking over the front of the queue with a weapons detector, and realised that there was a significant explosive trace. “Shit!” He shouted aloud. “We’ve got a bomber over here!”

Suddenly, alarms went off, and shutters came down. Just as according to plan. Guards ran towards the person who was in the process of being detected, and pointed their guns at them. “Show us your hands! Get ‘em up!” They were shouting.

And then a voice was heard across the room, silencing the confusion.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Tsumugi ordered darkly, through her voice synthesiser. She stepped out of the queue, and to the front, where the commotion was occurring.

And then we all opened our jackets, to show off our vests made of various explosives and biological weapons.

“These are all armed, and will go off the moment any of us dies via the dead man’s trigger, or if one of us pushes a trigger.” She explained calmly, continuing to walk forward.

Upstairs, the leaders of the Future Foundation were scrambling for cover, searching for what to do. Munakata Kyosuke thought to himself personally and briefly – “Shouldn’t we have prepared for this after last time?”.

However, there was no time for caution nor preparation. The masked figures, including myself, spread out around the panicked crowd of people, trapped like fish in a barrel with the shutters down, with enough explosives to practically obliterate the entire mountain. Around the balconies and walls and such, guards moved around, aiming their guns cautiously, not knowing what to do.

Tsumugi stopped and stood on one of the security tables, holding up a painfully obvious and dramatic detonator. “All we want is to talk! Us, the Remnants of Despair, who are now known as Team Danganronpa, and you, the Future Foundation, led by Makoto Naegi!” She shouted, calling out an implicit command for the leader of the FF to come out and face them.

And he did just that.

Makoto Naegi, surrounded by his comrades, with bags under his eyes, his hair smooth, flattened and slickened back, in a plain black suit, walked out of an elevator and stood at the top of the escalators.

“All of you, get down and kneel. I won’t have any sort of chit-chat while you’re waving bombs and guns around; that includes you, my guards.” He shouted calmly over the noise. I gave a small nod, only noticeable by those in the know, and we all sat down.

Makoto smiled. “That’s better. Now then… who the fuck is Team Danganronpa? What type of name is that, eh?” He spoke plainly, aiming his words at the only noticeable figure – Tsumugi, still stood on the table.

She tilted her masked head. “Isn’t it neat? A friendly sounding brand sorta name, a portmanteau of Dangan – bullet – and Ronpa – refutation, or argument. You inspired it, actually!” She nodded enthusiastically.

Makoto started walking down the stopped escalators. “Is that so? And you’re this group’s leader, then?” He asked. “No, no! I’m no leader, ha ha! She is here, though. If you want to talk and not be blown into fleshy chunks, that is…” Tsumugi explained, wittering on politely.

Makoto stopped at the bottom of the escalators, and sat on the security bench next to where she was stood. He looked around, and held his hand over his chin, as if deep in thought. “Well, I’ve really stuck my foot into it now, huh? I guess we don’t really have a choice, if I want to avoid another massacre at the hands of despair…” He sighed. “Alrighty; we’ll talk, if only briefly and a single time. I’ll chat with my colleagues, and we can come to an arrangement shortly, if you finally have a list of demands… but, I want to see the face of my enemy first.” He stated flatly.

Tsumugi nodded, and sat down.

And I stood up, almost slap-bang in the middle of the nervous looking crowd.

Makoto looked grimly at where my eyes were behind my mask, and started pacing towards me. The crowd seemed to part like the Red Sea to allow him through.

And we found each other staring into one another’s eyes at the centre of this all.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring the bleeping lights of the explosives on me, and reached up towards my neck.

I made a noise like a mic turning on. “Nobody cared who I was until I put on the mask…” I mocked him in a deep, unconvincing accent, as he pulled my mask off, revealing my beautiful face and my long flowing locks.

He took a step back, having a look over me, holding the mask in his left hand.

Naegi nodded sadly. “Junko.” He said.

I nodded back. “Makoto.” I responded.

He walked back to his comrades on the balcony above us, whilst I waltzed over to Tsumugi, a grin on my face.

They were deep in discussion. There were split nearly evenly between thinking we were bluffing and shooting us all there and then, and taking a chance and bringing both parties to the negotiating table.

Byakuya Togami, who’d been somewhat silent, spoke up. “I think we should give them a chance.” There was a sudden fall in the chatter, and the group looked towards him; Hajime and Munakata stone faced, while some of the 77th and 78th ex-class members nodded. “I think… if we have a chance to finally end this blasted conflict once and for all… even if it means having to sit face to face with THAT piece of shit once again… I think we have a moral duty, for the sake of all the world’s hope… to hear their stupid demands out. I’m sure we can haggle, after all.”

Makoto nodded. Only a few now shook their heads; on a majority basis, they agreed to speak to Team Danganronpa.

Makoto stood once more over the balcony, and shouted to me. “So, where and when did you want to do this? Somewhere more private, neutral maybe?” He queried loudly.

I grinned, nodding happily. “Oh, I know JUST the place for the great Coalition for the Future of the World to finally begin…”

“Coalition for the Future of the World? You’ve already got a name for this? Ha…” Makoto sighed dramatically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter came to me in a dream a while back; I had writer's block at the time, so when it did, I woke up in the middle of the night just to type it up. Funny how the mind works sometimes, huh? Anyways, hope you enjoy it.


	37. Chapter 37 – Plotholes and Loopholes (Everyone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone makes their way to their respective destination, whilst having an interesting discussion.

We were in transit to our destination, the large group of us sat awkwardly – former friends and arch-enemies, huddled together. The most pissed off looking one, Munakata Kyosuke, was staring daggers of pure hatred at me, but I ignored him.

“Hmm…” Teruteru, the Ultimate Cook, sat pondering… something. Gundham Tanaka, the Ultimate Breeder and pure good boi, was stroking one of his Four Dark Devas of Destruction (well, Twelve Zodiac Generals now, and so on…), and he lifted his head up to Teruteru. “Speak, ye filthy man, or let your thoughts drift into the abyss.”

Teruteru lifted his hand to his hair and stroked it calmly. “Well, since we were all here, and all survivors of that bitch’s various antics, I was thinking… weren’t they all kind of crap?”

Tsumugi and I both raised an eyebrow. “HUH?! What ya calling crap?” I shouted irritably. “Yeah! The Killing Games were the epitome of cool!” Tsumugi cried aloud.

Mikan Tsumiki stuttered in response. “I-I mean… didn’t they… have… a bunch of failings in their… uh… design and such?” She cowered nervously, not wanting to suffer my wrath. “L-like… If like… a group of people worked together… surely they could just kill everyone in the game and leave together… in a serial killing mass murder… way? I guess?”

I looked at her, and tilted my head a little. “Hm…” I nodded slowly. Suddenly, Tsumugi had a notepad and pen out, her glasses shining from the excitement in her eyes. “That actually does kind of make sense although… not really. But, tell you what; tell me all of the loopholes and such that you can think of!” She smiled in a cunning manner.

Yasuhiro Hagakure (who had finally managed to meet up with all of us in an awkward manner as any) hummed aloud. “Well, I was kind of thinking myself… I mean, technically there was a rule stating that a blackened could only kill two people at a time, but… what if they just slaughtered everyone, leaving only themselves? Would Monokuma… or, uh, you I guess… still execute them? Wouldn’t that be kinda boring?”

“Mmhm!” Tsumugi nodded furiously, jotting down various short-hands and such.

“Hey… What about…” Aoi Asahina murmured something. “Surely if the body announcement and trial can only occur after three or more people find the body, that means that if someone just hides a corpse really well, it’ll never be announced?”

Tsumugi held her pen in her mouth for a moment. “I mean, I guess… but surely they’d want the body to be discovered, since that’s the only way out as the blackened?”

Kyoko Kirigiri spoke up. “Well, I was thinking…  If two different murders by two different murderers occur at the same time, but only the one whose victim was found first will be the blackened, surely that means if a murder has already occurred, the second murderer could just kill as many as they please? They could even do it openly…” I shook my head a little in response. “I’m pretty sure nobody would want that… not even we wanted a Battle Royale kinda gimmick… And, of course, they’d get automatically executed if they kill more than two… But yeah, I see what you mean.”

Tsumugi continued scribbling notes.

Kyosuke surprisingly began to talk. “So, if your goal was to bring the world into despair… weren’t there easier methods of doing it? Like, you obviously had lots of resources and such… Surely you could have just blown up a meeting of the United Nations or something? Or started World War Three? And, if you wanted to be such a powerful despairing figure, why did you have to be involved so personally and such? In fact, surely you could have just made your way up the ladder of politics and brought the world into despair by becoming a world leader – especially since you seem so good at manipulation and such?” I scowled at him. “Yeah, but that’s totally cliché and totally boring, y’know? It’s so much cooler when the mastermind of all evil is sitting right next to you, yeah?” He scowled back.

Keebo, who was sat awkwardly, squished between Tsumugi and Amami, sat up a bit. “I was looking at the intel on your HQ, Future Foundation members, when I realised the location… You realise that you built it on an active volcano, right?!” He spoke up in an exacerbated manner. Togami pushed his glasses up, glinting them, and grinned. “No, it was designed deliberately by Kyosuke, Makoto and I… Because it is situated on an active volcano, it also served as an incredibly potent power station, placed over a large source of extreme geothermal energy that won’t run out for millions of years, with the added bonus of stopping any eruptions.” He answered neatly.

Komaru Naegi looked up from a video game console. “How the heck did you manage to kill Mukuro Ikusaba with the Spears of Gungnir when she seemed to know that there should have been a trap door where the spears came from? Like, I imagine she inspected the area beforehand, so how did you manage to seemingly magically insert spears there?” Everyone looked at me, implicitly wanting an answer to one of my most inhumane crimes.

I shrugged. Everyone groaned.

Hajime Hinata opened his eyes, and uncrossed his legs. “How do so many people seem to know about the details of our killing games and such? Like, I know that the first and second ones (the Tragedy of Hope’s Peak Academy that brought on the world’s despair, and the Killing School Life) were televised and recorded and such, but the other events and stuff weren’t? How do so many people know about the attack on the old FF HQ? Was the Neo World game recorded or something? And what about the details of the daily life of ourselves or whatever?” His question also beckoned an answer. I licked my lips, curious to myself, and leant over to Tsumugi, who was still rapidly writing.

She looked up. “Well, a lot of it was leaked online and stuff, you know? By myself, my colleagues, etcetera, to continue fuelling despair and such…”.

She paused, and squinted at her notes. “Huh. Actually, I do understand now… these killing games, these Danganronpas, could actually be… ha! That’s neat.” We all looked at her, trying to see what she meant. I knew implicitly what she wanted – the expansion of her so-called brand of despair and such. She wanted a despair inducing franchise!

Toko Fukawa gritted her teeth a bit, and cleared her throat loudly. “Why did our class get to wear our own cool clothes, yet the previous classes all had to wear uniform and suits and such?”. She bit the nail of her thumb.

We all stared at her, blinking, before breaking into laughter. Komaru Naegi shook her head at Toko: “Of all the things, THAT’S what you’re curious about?”

She looked embarrassed. Nagisa Shingetsu, the former Sage of Hope, tried to stop the rude chatter. “Wait wait wait, you know what I’d quite like to know? How the hell did you find myself and my friends on the roof of that building? Also, can we really count the Demon Hunting as a mutual killing game, when it was so vastly different and one sided?!” The chatter stopped, and turned into a low murmur. Tsumugi looked at me, and I looked at the boy. “I mean… Well, you have a point. But I can’t really give you the answers for those, though you certainly know who could answer…”

Nagisa’s face visibly darkened. “Well, yeah, but SHE’s not exactly around anymore, right?”

I grinned a cruel grin. “Well, kiddo, I think you might find that fate can be a cruel mistress sometimes… Be careful what you wish for and all that…”; and the little room in the vehicle was filled with a sudden silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This one was just a bit of fun. Would any of you prefer more fun stuff like this? Also, I've completely finished the first third of the book, as well as a significant chunk of the last third. It's mainly the stuff in the middle that I keep getting a bit of writer's block with. Will keep y'all posted.


	38. Chapter 38 – Humankind Beckons (Everyone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Become like space and enter the void. We leave Earth, and reach for the stars.
> 
> Recommended music?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBLQ76JYZo - SHSLs of Humankind Beckon.

The group of shoddily made rockets ignited their engines, and blasted off.

We were somewhere to the south of Russia, in what was formerly Kazakhstan. I had a bunch of Monokuma-themed rockets and missiles left which we made use of. I put in a set of detailed co-ordinates and instructions, and we were off to the races.

The missiles were modified Unha rockets, supplied by the North Korean regime, decorated in our Despairful manner and repurposed by Russian and ex-PRC based engineering to adapt to the flight. They were… somewhat more comfortable than a traditional “space rocket”, so that civilians and such could use them and reside in them without the more unpleasant reactions to space flight.

We had divvied up the passengers from both the Future Foundation, Team Danganronpa, and anyone else in-between (such as the ex-Warriors of Hope, among others – since technically anyone on Earth had actually been invited to help conduct negotiations), and randomly placed them on each rocket, so as not to have any bias to one single group. We’d also left each of our own designated people back on land; Yasuhiro Hagakure for the Future Foundation, and Rantaro Amami for Team Danganronpa.

We soared into the atmosphere on these big, ridiculous hot hunks of metal, strapped in as tight as possible. The ship hammered with the sound of turbulence and the drumbeats of our nervous hearts; heck, even I was somewhat unsure as to the safety of this thing – and I bloody designed most of it!

Eventually, we entered into a low earth orbit, and the ship slowly turned to face the world.

And, well…

It was a dump.

What was once a beautiful blue marble in the sea of stars had been turned into a thriving blood red and brown hot mass; covered in storms, smoke, and the air stained with chemical what-nots.

The Americas looked like a deserted mess, from the large amount of radiation that had turned it into a wasteland in a matter of months, with only a few bits of green dotted around; Europe was covered in what looked like battle scars, which made it almost look like a mirror of the Moon, and the Mediterranean had evaporated slightly, forcing a land bridge between Iberia and what was once Morocco.

Oddly, a large amount of Asia still looked alright; Central Asia was mostly unharmed, except for an unnatural number of storms.  

Whilst most of the African continent was a healthy looking green, this was counterbalanced by the total annihilation of the entire Horn of Africa, which was turned into a blackened mess.

Back in Asia, the Indian ‘subcontinent’ region, from East Persia to Western Burma, which was a grim red colour, mainly since so many people had died there and had been left to rot that it had literally stained the soil of the land. Similar occurrences had happened across the PRC, Japan, and Australia, although South East Asia wasn’t visible due to a massive hurricane looking formation all over it. 

Mother Nature itself roared in agony at this First Tragedy that had ruined it so.

This world was rotten, inside and outside. It was unhealthy, and it desperately needed a doctor.

Ha! Listen to me. I feel like fuckin’ Shakespeare, only with sloppier writing!

The gasps of the people on board put me out of my thoughts. They were looking utterly entranced at the planet below us; some of them held up their fingers next to the windows, pretending to squash all of Asia like an ant.

I smiled smugly.

The rocket continued its transition into orbit, slowly turning around, to show another, similarly awe-inspiring that beckoned for the love of all of humanity’s sight.

A new, massive, almost shining space station, about the length of an aircraft carrier, floating near us. It was in the basic design of a “von Braun” wheel, a series of circular sections rotating simultaneously so as to bring about some form of gravity.

Nobody had seen anything like this white, shining wonder, except in sci-fi films and such.

Naturally, this was exactly as I planned. You see, the “van” I had designed for Monaca was actually also equipped for various different possible scenarios after my death, including the possibility that she might run away as far as possible – that is, into space. Thus, I designed it with a reconnaissance and structural repurposing mechanism, meaning it could expand its atmosphere, build connecting structures out debris, and other things. I had also left plans for an entire Stanford torus using the theoretical van Braun wheel for an orbital platform; as a result, here was a massive, shiny new space station – still under construction, mind you.

For a robotics genius like Monaca, I imagine this would be a dream come true.

The rocket made its final approach, jettisoning its main engines, and docking autonomously with the space station, followed by the rest of the ships.

We had done it; in the era of the supposed post-apocalypse, we had left our ruined world and reached for the stars.

As we all got off our various rockets, cheering could be heard from various angles; I’m pretty sure many people were more excited to be here than others, whilst others had forgotten the reasons for being here and were concentrating on the cool space stuff.

Either way, I turned my attention to Monaca Towa, who was floating around, waiting for us (floating around, mainly because the van Braun wheel wasn’t quite finished for artificial gravity yet, though this was probably best for Monaca since she was disabled from the waist down now) to come aboard.

Several people recognised our host, especially Komaru, Toko, and the former Warriors of Hope. They reacted with various different expressions of horror, anger, surprise and terror. And this was where the tension would grow once more; understandable, I suppose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Guess who's back. Also, it's the despair song from DR3, that's in the DR1 Anime ost for no apparent reason. More soon, I promise, and plenty of fan service, maybe.


	39. Chapter 39 – Meeting (Everyone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the precipice of the world, it all comes tumbling down as everyone comes together once more. A revelation shocks siblings. We have a tour of the station before getting back to business.

A dreadful silence filled the air in the landing bays, as all the excitement of space and our surroundings faded as we met our reality.

Not that Monaca cared. She was spinning around in the zero-gravity environment.

Genocider broke the silence. “Oiiii! What’s this little runt doing here?!” She screamed, brandishing a pair of scissors and trying to stand threateningly but failing, floating a bit and looking hilarious.

Monaca pouted. “Wow! Monaca-chan thinks that’s very rude to your host…”; her pickle hair was floating around (it was still long, but she’d got around to cutting some of it and tidying it up). Genocider sighed loudly, but was shoved bluntly out the way by the Naegi siblings.

Makoto looked at the lime haired girl with a steely gaze. “Are you the one who trapped my parents and my sister for Junko’s motive videos? And, more to the point, where are my… OUR parents?” He spoke quietly, with an almost deadly tone.

Monaca Towa stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry. Komaru floated next to her brother, and shook her fist at the little girl. “I swear, you better tell us where our parents are, right now! You have nowhere else to run now that you’ve reached space!” She shouted in apparent emotional anguish. Monaca wiggled her head with glee. “Who knows? And anyways… whatcha gonna do to Monaca anyways?”

Komaru quivered; whether she was nervous, angry, or emotional, I’m unsure. “I’ll… I’ll…” Monaca’s grin spread further. “You’ll… you’ll… YOU’LL WHAT?”

I snapped my fingers loudly.

Everyone turned to me, including the aggrieved parties.

“This isn’t getting anywhere.” I complained loudly. “Don’t we have, like, better things to do?”

The Naegi siblings crossed their arms in unison. “Nothing is gonna happen until this little shit obliges our—” Makoto began to say.

“Your parents are dead.”

The voice said in agreement with my own. I turned to look to my accomplice – it was Jataro Kemuri (who I barely recognised without his weird mask, but his voice was obvious).

This new silence that occurred wasn’t a tense nor dreadful one, but one lacking any emotion at all.

Nagisa stepped forward after a while. “Yes. He’s right, I’m afraid. You see, when the safehouses got broken into by the Future Foundation, we sent the Monokumas in to take you all back to the Excalibur, but several of you escaped. Even when we managed to capture a whole bunch of adults, including a number of hostages, your parents remained arrogantly ignoring the situation and riling up the other people…” He spoke calmly, trying to hide his nervous jitters.

Monaca swung round again. “So, Monaca had all the annoying people executed! That day, your parents swung from the gallows, having suffered a short sharp drop! The video was real!” She grinned, her eyes swirling in complete despairful ecstasy. I turned my head to the girl, and gave her a grim look – mainly because I was pissed off that she hadn’t followed my orders not to kill the hostages without my permission, but also because I didn’t want her fun to ruin my great plan. She ignored my look, focused on the task at hand.

She floated forward, taunting Komaru Naegi, who had gone completely white with rage. “And what’s funny? They were crying the whole time! Boo-hoo-hoo! They wailed Makoto’s name, and never even mentio—”

She was cut off by a hand grabbing her throat, choking her. She wiggled round, trying to pull the hand off.

Komaru’s face was completely dark, filled with utter depravity and anger. She held the small girl’s tiny neck in her hand, squeezing it with all of her strength. Monaca clawed away at the hand trying to kill her.

Suddenly, Komaru went completely blank, and she collapsed, floating backwards. Her brother had whacked her head full on with his fist, knocking her unconscious. He himself looked completely cold and full of fury, but instead of going to attack Monaca (who was now coughing and spluttering, hitting her chest repeatedly) he took his little sister in his arms and floated down the corridor.

Monaca stared at the Naegi siblings with what could only be described as vehement hatred; she screamed at them, and span to launch after them. But I caught the small, light girl with my single hand, and Tsumugi stepped forward and tossed her over her shoulder.

I bent down (as easily as one can in 0-G) and stared long and hard into her eyes. “Remember, Monaca… you’re mine. You live for me. You’re an extension of me. And no body part can function without the brain or the heart… do not fail me again. Now, go to sleep for a bit.” I took out a small needle (causing Nagisa to look away) and stuck it in her neck, and she ceased to move.

Just asleep, mind you. I still have tasks for her. I took the light little girl into my arms, and hopped up.

“Nagisa-kun, would you do the honours?” I turned to the boy and smiled. A small squint of recognition flashed in his eyes, before seemingly being rejected. “Big si--- no… Enoshima-san, I will not. I’m not Monaca’s subordinate anymore, and I have no intention to be yours.” He snarled back at me.

I sighed. “Good grief… I kind of wanted an adorable child to lead y’all around this fancy arse place I made, but oh well. Tsumugi.” My servant nodded and gave the tour.

The group of us – it was about 200 or so people, roughly evenly divided between Team Danganronpa, the Future Foundation, and everyone else who wanted to be here.

The group of us paced down the hallway, into an atrium type area; some Monokuma robots were walking around, building things, and several areas were covered in maintenance sheeting. Tsumugi, masked as always, raised her hands as if she was a realtor.  “This large area of the facility is the entrance hall; a large atrium, fitted with central heating, air conditioning, security measures, and some escalators. There will also be some awesome décor too, but our host hasn’t quite finished it yet…” She waved us up the escalators, which slowly brought us upwards. I stared at the two massive things, again covered in sheeting, on either side of the escalators.

Did Monaca have an interest in interior design or architecture, perhaps…?

We were walking along another featureless hallway, except for the ever-constant windows showing the magnificent spectacle of space, when we came across another corridor. It was still under construction, but it was clearly signposted:

“Neo World Program – Version 3”.

Tsumugi obviously wanted to keep us going. I turned to her, and she nodded slowly. I sighed. “Hey, folks, this is just a future little project my colleague has been interested in… it’ll be up and running within the next decade or so, but it’s mainly an important step in the plans we have – y’know, the ones you’re all here for? So, snap to it, let’s get a move on!” I rolled my eyes, and Tsumugi visibly lifted her head up in relief. The group was muttering a bit now, the Program obviously piquing their interest – since Version 1 was the original, based on Jabberwock Island and developed by the Hope’s Peak Academy, and Version 2 was the variant that the Future Foundation was trying to develop – but we continued on, nevertheless.

We finally reached the room I’d been waiting for – a large, fancy room with a long meeting table. It had a holographic fireplace, and each seat was leather backed. Monaca had really put everything into this, huh?

I motioned the people to take their seats, while I walked over to a small coffee table, and put on Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, before taking a seat at the head of the table, with Tsumugi stood by my side, ever present.

I coughed loudly, clearing my throat. “I hate to say it, but until the other leader returns, there’s no point starting…”. I laid Monaca down on a nearby seat, and laid back in the comfy chair.

Meanwhile, Komaru Naegi had regained consciousness in an adjourning room, lying on a small medical bed. She blinked, and realised her face was covered in tears; remembering what had just occurred, she crawled into a little ball.

She was full of despair; she couldn’t go on…

She noticed her older brother sitting on the floor, his legs lying flat, staring aimlessly at the ceiling. “Makoto-chan?” She queried politely.

He turned to face her, his eyes bloodshot from crying. “Yo, sis. How are you?” He smiled weakly. She frowned. “I mean… how do you think I am?”

He laid back a bit, his smile waning. He looked at her, deep into her eyes, and spoke with an unusually emotional quiver in his voice.

“…I knew our parents were gone…” He said.

Komaru gasped, about to cry again, but closed her lips. She looked at the modern, white metallic ceiling, in thought. “…Yeah, I suppose I did too, huh…” She responded.

Makoto Naegi licked his lips, which were dry and cracked, lacking moisture. “I had my people verify the video a while back. They said it was genuine, cross checking materials and stuff found while you were in Towa City. I just… didn’t want to believe it… kind of like you, I guess.” He stood up a bit, and sat next to Komaru on the mattress. “I’m sorry, little sis.”

Komaru’s eyes filled with tears, and she laid her head on her brother’s shoulder; he stroked her head, his eyes bawling but not making a sound.

Eventually, they made their way to the meeting room, following the noise of the music playing. Makoto opened the doors in dramatic fashion, followed by his gloomy looking sister.

“No point starting, Junko? Don’t you know that the Future Foundation is not an organisation based on leadership, but on its members?” He spoke loudly, announcing his presence.

I put my legs up onto the table rudely, crossing them. “Ha! Whatever. You sound like a damn communist; these days, with my new rebranding and whatnot, I’m a filthy capitalist myself…” I grinned, waving my hand towards the other end of the table for him to sit.

The gravity was a bit more stable in this section, meaning we could actually sit down without floating off.

I cleared my throat, and held my hands together.

“I hereby announce the beginning of the first meeting of the Coalition for the Future of the World.” I spoke formally. There was a polite round of applause from my members, and grim silence from those affiliated with hope.

I crunched my teeth, a bit fucked off. “Yo, if you’re not even gonna listen to our suggestions and whatnot, I might as well blow this station to kingdom come, given all the good it would do. Then the planet would be REALLY screwed…” I moaned at them.

Kyosuke Munakata stood up aggressively and pulled out his katana. For the first time, I recognised it for what it was; one of the accursed Muramasa blades, known for killing hundreds in its heyday, and could not be put back in its scabbard without drawing blood. “Tell you what, now we’re all nice and isolated, maybe you should give me one damn good reason why I shouldn’t kill you and your sorry lot for all the pain and suffering you’ve brought the world, and to myself…?” He growled vulgarly.

I leaned forward a little in my chair, placing my hands flat down on the table. Monaca Towa snorted a bit nearby, her head asleep quite close to my left hand.

Tsumugi, who was silent behind me, stepped forward. “We’re here to negotiate, not to fight. And the terms are simple: Either we work together to forge an equal world where hope and despair work side by side, or the world ends in the foul state it’s in now.” She stated simply, her mask obscuring any emotion she had for the subject.

Now there was some murmuring from all sides of the table. I grinned, finally glad that interest had been piqued.

I spoke up a bit. “Now that I have your attention once more, I had Tsumugi do the honours of preparing a small presentation for my proposal. I personally wanted a video…” At this, a small number of the room, mainly from Ryota Mitarai and such. I continued: “…But Tsumugi requested I do otherwise, to be more tactful, I suppose. And anyways! Nobody can beat a good, educational powerpoint!” The woman walked to the side of the room, switching off the lights, and pulling down a simple projection screen.

A simple looking monogrammed logo in a robotic looking circle, emblazoned with “TEAM DANGANRONPA” appeared on the screen.

I stood, raising my hands dramatically. “I present to you, the answer to all of our problems. Just naming the Remnants of Despair this is only the beginning; what I want is a supreme mega-conglomeration of all the world’s resources into a single government-turned-corporation, based on a simple idea: Hope through Despair and Despair through Hope.”

The slide switched, showing a brief summary in picture format of the killing games so far. “As you may have known, when the Killing School Life was broadcast across the world by yours truly, the world effectively stopped, entranced in horror and in good will. People everywhere dropped their guns and instead put their hearts into the “characters” of the event, betting on the battle between hope and despair. There was a momentary peace in the storm of the Tragedy.”

The slides changed once more, this time bringing up various diagrams with mathematical mumbo-jumbo written all over them by me. “I want to use all of our resources that we have left to bring a despair-filled hope across the world. People living peacefully, content that bad things only happen in the imagination, in a perfect world where ultimate talents are found efficiently and used to effectively define the future. We turn these events that we’ve been through into propaganda, eventually erasing it from history and putting it all into fiction; eventually, people will think of the Tragedy not as an event that plagued the world, but as an awesome plot point in the world’s longest running franchise!” I grinned, before patting Monaca Towa on the head. She lifted her head up gloomily, half asleep.

There was a bit of a murmur around the room as the stuff was discussed. I leaned down and whispered to Monaca. “Hey, my little despair pumpkin. Could you help me out a bit and give out the materials?” I mentioned quietly. She groggily nodded, and pushed herself upwards, using the little bit of zero gravity and her light weight to float around the room, giving out packets of information to the delegates with the help of Tsumugi.

“Obviously, I don’t want to bore myself with explaining all the nitty-gritty details and what-not out loud, so I had my comrades print out a bunch of papers for you to look through. I suggest we take a night to mull over the work before meeting again tomorrow – not that time really exists in space, though!” I nodded, almost proud of my speech. There was even a bit of light applause by both sides this time.

The room slowly emptied; I grabbed myself a small cup of water from the little coffee table and noticed that I was now alone in the room with Hajime Hinata and Makoto Naegi.

I turned to them.

They nodded.

I nodded back, and walked in between them to sit down, placing my cup of water on the table.

“Guess it’s time for the talk, huh?” I said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the long delay. I'm still advertising this fanfic everywhere, but I just can't get it the attention it deserves, so I'm kinda in a slump of writer's block. I still have loads of chapters that have been written, but with so many chapters that I need to write, I don't want the gap to get too small. Anyways, I hope you enjoy.


	40. Chapter 40 - The Miscellaneous Events of the Life of Nagito Komaeda, Part 3 – The Chain (Nagito Komaeda)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nagito goes for a walk.

The pale, weak looking young man walked into the village. It was a little place called Seikoji, which had grown from an old Buddhist temple in the south of the old Miyagi Prefecture; it had been largely claimed by a band of Remnants of Despair, who had slaughtered the monks and worshippers and hung their bodies around the walls.

He wore a dark black jacket, and a dark red olive-green striped jumper, and a metallic chained collar around his neck. They were old treasures of times since past that he had kept for too long; he rattled as he paced slowly through the village.

He turned his head to a head on a spike, mouth left open and blood drooling; a young woman stood next to it, placing her hand on the dead head, scowling at the man. He smiled back, and waved his metallic robot hand at her.

“Eh? Don’t I recognise you from somewhere, scumbag?” She scowled menacingly at him, pulling out a large kitchen knife and pointing it at the man’s throat. He smiled. “I doubt it, I’m not terribly rememberable…”

The woman tutted, and whistled, calling the rest of her gang who appeared in a circle around the man, each at one of the small blood-stained buildings, pointing various firearms and weapons at him. One boring looking bloke stood next to the woman. “Yo! You ain’t allowed in this area mate! Fuck off somewhere else, or you’ll end up like these bastard monks…” He growled at the sick looking man.

He simply stood, smiling.

The woman snapped her fingers, and all of her comrades cocked their guns at him. “We won’t warn you again; leave, dropping your weapons and items, or die here, fuckface…” She licked her lips, sneering at him.

He pulled out a small silver revolver from his jacket and left it at his side. One of the men laughed. “Ha! You really think that battered little gun is gonna help yousa?”

The woman held up her hand. “Alright then. Ready men!” She shouted. The man behind her suddenly frowned, and opened his mouth to speak whilst pointing his gun, as if realising something.

The surrounded young man’s smile broadened, and he fired.

The bullet flew into the ground, catching a tiny rock, and ricocheted straight into the head of the woman. She dropped her gun, which bounced upwards, blasting the man behind her in the chest, knocking him backwards. He dropped a knife, which bounced, cutting a nearby rope, which dropped a lantern on one of the other gang member’s head, setting him on fire, and causing him to run around screaming, running straight into another soldier and causing him to stab himself in the neck.

The chaos bloomed around Komaeda like a wildfire. His smile faded, and he sighed. He looked to the headless woman, and noticed the man behind her corpse still groaning, most of his chest all over the floor, his intestines falling out, his liver spluttering, and his heart open to the elements, beating weakly.

Komaeda walked upwards, and squatted next to the dying man. He turned his head slowly to Nagito and grinned a bit. “Hey… I do know you. You’re the Servant, right…? Where did you go all those days ago…? We could have used you… in the fight…” The man coughed, spluttering blood all over Komaeda’s jumper. Nagito grinned a little. “Tell me… do you hope to go to an afterlife? What do you hope will happen to you? Will your death and the deaths of these others help start a butterfly effect, leading to the world going back to hope?” He spoke sweetly, stroking the man’s sweaty head.

And then he put his hands on his neck and snapped it, killing him instantly, causing his eyes to roll back into his head. However, a bone stuck out of his neck, sticking Nagito straight through his robot hand.

“Oh. That’s annoying.” Nagito said quietly, standing up and observing the piece of bone lodged in the metal. He started walking off again, his chain rattling along with him.


End file.
